Matt Hancock has said “lots of people” want him to succeed Theresa May as prime minister, as the Tory leadership race ramped up on Monday.
“I don’t rule out standing for the leadership of the Conservative Party,” the health secretary said.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4′s Today programme, said he had a “strong view” about the sort of leader the party needed.
“We need a leader not just for now but also for the future, we need to be absolutely four-square in the centre-ground of British politics,” he said.
“It’s flattering that lots of people have asked me to put my name forward and proposed to support me if I do but that isn’t the point, which is we still have to get this legislation to deliver Brexit through.”
Hancock is widely expected to throw his hat into the ring once the contest formally gets underway.
Boris Johnson, who is seen as the early frontrunner, confirmed last week he will enter the race.
Other Tories who could stand include Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Penny Mordaunt, Andrea Leadsom, Rory Stewart and Esther McVey.
May has promised to set out a timetable for her departure once the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) has its second reading in the Commons in the week beginning June 3.
The PM is set to begin discussions with senior ministers today on her proposed new “bold offer” to MPs in a final attempt to get her deal through parliament.
The weekly meeting of the cabinet is expected to sign off on a package of measures to be included in the WAB aimed at winning cross-party support.
But there was widespread scepticism at Westminster that it will fare any better than her three previous failed attempts to get the Commons to pass the deal.
Following the collapse last week of cross-party talks with Labour aimed at reaching a common approach, Jeremy Corbyn said he had not yet seen anything new that would persuade him to support it.
It comes at the start of what looks likely to be another torrid week for the Prime Minister with the Conservatives braced for a hammering at the hands of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in the European elections on Thursday.
One weekend poll put them in a humiliating fifth place behind the Greens, with the results likely to exacerbate frustration in the party at the failure to leave the EU in March as planned.