The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, will spend Christmas at Chevening after winning a battle to take sole charge of the 115-room grace and favour mansion in Kent.
Theresa May originally declared that Chevening would be shared equally between Johnson, David Davis, the Brexit secretary, and Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, but Johnson is now the main user and will be there with his family for Christmas.
The prime minister’s “house-share” proposal fell through after the trustees who run Chevening, which was gifted to the nation for the use of a cabinet minister or a member of the royal family, objected to the idea of three people having joint responsibility for it.
As a result, Johnson, who outranks Davis and Fox in the cabinet pecking order, was nominated to be in charge, on the understanding that he would also allow his two fellow Brexiters to use it.
Davis and Fox have expressed little interest in using the 17th-century mansion, which is set in a 1,415-hectare (3,500-acre) estate.
Speaking at the Conservative party conference in September, Fox said he already had a house in his North Somerset constituency “with one of the best vistas to look out on” and that he did not need another country house.
May originally wanted the trio to share the house because they all might want to use it to host foreign visitors and leaders, Downing Street said in July.
