Liz Truss officially becomes prime minister after meeting the Queen

New PM is 56th holder of the office and the third woman to head the government

Liz Truss is now the United Kingdom’s prime minister after being invited to form a government by the Queen at Balmoral.

A photo showed the monarch smiling as she shook hands with her new prime minister in the drawing room of her Scottish Highland retreat.

Ms Truss became the UK’s 56th PM - and the third woman to hold the role - during a half-hour audience with the Queen around an hour after Boris Johnson visited Her Majesty to tender his resignation.

In a statement, Buckingham Palace said: “The Queen received in audience The Right Honourable Elizabeth Truss MP today and requested her to form a new administration. Ms Truss accepted Her Majesty’s offer and kissed hands upon her appointment as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury.”

The ceremony is known as “kissing hands”, but no kisses are in fact exchanged. It takes place behind closed doors away from TV cameras, with only a still photograph as a record of the event. Ms Truss was accompanied by her husband Hugh O’Leary.

Buckingham Palace would normally be the venue for the Queen to receive her new PM, but it was decided to hold the event at Balmoral because of concerns over the sovereign’s mobility. The picture of the ceremony showed her clutching a walking stick.

Ms Truss is the 15th PM of Elizabeth II’s reign, but the 14th who she has invited to form a government, as Sir Winston Churchill was already in office when she came to the throne.

The new PM’s team were quick to update her profile on Twitter to read “Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”.

But for some time after the handover of power, the 10 Downing Street website continued to carry a picture of Mr Johnson under the heading: “Meet the Prime Minister”. Mr Johnson’s own Twitter profile was amended shortly after his audience with the Queen, describing him as the “former prime minister of the United Kingdom”.

After leaving the Queen, Ms Truss was flying back to London in order to take up the reins of power at Downing Street, where she is expected to address the nation from outside No 10 at around 4pm before appointing a cabinet.

Hours before stepping down, Mr Johnson made his own address from the doorstep of No 10, where he promised to back his successor “every step of the way” and offer her government “nothing but the most fervent support”.