In the
politics of the United Kingdom, the 'Cabinet' is a formal body composed of the most senior
government
ministers chosen by the
Prime Minister. Most members are heads of
government departments with the title "
Secretary of State". Formal members of the
Cabinet are drawn exclusively from the
House of Commons and the
House of Lords.
In traditional constitutional theory, in the
British system of government, the Cabinet is the key formal decision making body of the
executive. This interpretation was originally put across in the work of nineteenth century constitutionalists such as
Walter Bagehot (who described the Cabinet as the 'efficient secret' of the British political system in his book '
The English Constitution'). The political and decision-making authority of the cabinet has been gradually reduced over the last several decades, with some claiming its role has been usurped by a 'Prime-Ministerial' (i.e. more 'presidential') government.
Originally, the Cabinet merely served as a sub-committee to the
Privy Council. However, the modern Cabinet system was set up by Prime Minister
David Lloyd George during his premeirship of 1916-22, with a
Cabinet Office and
Secretariat, committee structures,
Minutes, and a clearer relationship with departmental Cabinet Ministers. This development grew out of the exigencies of the
First World War, where faster and better co-ordinated decisions across Government were seen as crucial part of the war effort. Lloyd George himself once said, "War is too important to be left to the generals."
Decisions on mass
conscription, co-ordination world-wide with other governments across international theatres, armament production tied into a general war strategy that could be developed and overseen from an inner "
War Cabinet",
10 Downing Street, are all clear elements retained today. As the country went through successive crises after the 1922-1926
General Strike, the
Great Depression of 1929-32; the rise of communist
Bolshevism after 1917 and
Fascism after 1922; the
Spanish Civil War 1936 onwards; the invasion of
Abyssinia 1936; the League of Nations Crisis which followed; the re-armament and resurgence of Germany from 1933, plus the lead into another
World War - all demanded a highly organized and centralized Government based around the Cabinet.
This centralization inevitably enhanced the power of the Prime Minister, who moved from being the ''primus inter pares'' of the
Asquith Cabinets of 1906 onwards, with a glittering set of huge individual talents leading powerful departments, to the dominating figures of
Lloyd George,
Stanley Baldwin and
Winston Churchill.
Historical
The notion of a cabinet supporting the chief executive of the government, at least within
England, dates back to
medieval times. Medieval English monarchs often headed "cabinets", which consisted of ministers who advised the monarch and implemented his decisions. The term "minister" came into being since the English sovereign's ministers "ministered" the will of the king. In this period, the English monarch was an absolute monarch, and as such directly exercised all of the executive powers of the realm.
Traditional cabinets of medieval England consisted of:
★
Household:
★
★
Lord High Steward
★
★
Lord High Treasurer
★
★
Lord Privy Seal
★
★
Lord Great Chamberlain
★
★
Wardrobe
★
Law Courts
★
★
Admiralty
★
★
Chancery
★
★
Common Pleas
★
★
Exchequer
★
★
King's Bench
★
Military:
★
★
Lord High Constable
★
★
Earl Marshal
★
★
Lord High Admiral
Composition
The
Prime Minister uses
royal prerogative powers of patronage to appoint and dismiss members of the Cabinet and therefore requires the formal approval of the
monarch for any appointment to the Cabinet.
Any change to the composition of the Cabinet involving more than one appointment is customarily referred to as a
reshuffle. The total number of ministers allowed to be paid as "Cabinet ministers" (22) is governed by
statute (
Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975), and this has caused successive Prime Ministers problems, and accounts for some of the unusual regular attendees at Cabinet, who are not paid as "Cabinet ministers". The numbers often fluctuate between 21 and 24.
The Cabinet has always been led by the
Prime Minister, although the role of the Prime Minister is traditionally described as ''
primus inter pares'', first among equals, though clearly this is a nominal status rather than a reality—after all, it is the Prime Minister alone who appoints/dismisses Cabinet Ministers and sets the agenda for Cabinet individually and through the
Cabinet Secretary. It was Tony Blair's decision alone to reduce Cabinet meetings to once-weekly from Tuesdays and Thursdays, just as he chose to consolidate the Tuesday/Thursday Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons to once-weekly on Wednesdays, although remaining exposed for the same total time. So, the extent to which the Prime Minister is collegial depends on political conditions and individual personalities.
In formal
constitutional terms, the Cabinet is a committee of the
Privy Council. All Cabinet members are created Privy Councillors on appointment and therefore use the style "
The Right Honourable". As members of the House of Lords are "The Right Honourable" or hold a
higher style as of right, Privy Councillors in the Lords place the letters "PC" after their names to distinguish themselves.
Recent custom has been that the composition of the Cabinet has been made up almost entirely of members of the
House of Commons. The office of
Leader of the House of Lords is a member of the House of Lords, but apart from this one post it is now rare for a peer to sit in the Cabinet. The role of
Lord Chancellor was, until recently, always occupied by a member of the House of Lords, however since the creation of the office of
Lord Speaker this is no longer necessary and the current post holder is
Jack Straw, a
member of the House of Commons. The former Leader of the Lords,
Lady Amos, was the last peer to sit in any other Cabinet post, as
Secretary of State for International Development from May to October 2003. The last
Secretary of State for a major department drawn from the Lords was
Lord Young of Graffham, serving between 1985 and 1989 as
Secretary of State for Employment until 1987 and
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry until 1989. Interestingly, the number of junior ministers who are peers has increased since 1997, though being a peer can be a block to Cabinet-advancement.
A small number of other ministers below Secretary of State level may also be included in Cabinet meetings as a matter of course. The
Attorney General (currently
Baroness Scotland), together with the chair of the governing parliamentary party, are customarily included and other members of the Government can be invited at the Prime Minister's discretion.
In recent years, non-members of
HM Government have been permitted by the Prime Minister to attend Cabinet meetings on a regular basis, notably
Alastair Campbell in his capacity as
Director of Communications and Strategy between 1997 and 2003, and
Jonathan Powell,
Tony Blair's
Chief of Staff, with a distinctly separate role from the
Cabinet Secretary/
Head of the Civil Service.
Meetings of the Cabinet
The Cabinet meets on a regular basis, usually weekly on a Thursday morning, notionally to discuss the most important issues of government policy, and to make decisions. The length of meetings vary according to the style of the Prime Minister and political conditions, but today meetings can be as little as 30 minutes in length, which suggests ratification of decisions taken in committee or in bi-lateral discussions between the Prime Minister and individual departmental Cabinet colleagues, with discussion in Cabinet itself somewhat curtailed.
The Cabinet has numerous
sub-committees which focus particular policy areas, particularly ones which cut across several ministerial responsibilities, and therefore need coordination. These may be permanent committees or set up for a short duration to look at particular issues ("
ad hoc committees").
Junior Ministers are also often members of these committees, in addition to Secretaries of State. The transaction of government business through meetings of the Cabinet and its many committees is administered by a small secretariat within the
Cabinet Office.
In practice, and increasingly in recent years, weekly meetings of the full Cabinet have tended to be more concerned with the exchange of information and ratification of decisions, major decisions being taken by Cabinet Committees or in informal groups, often bi-laterals between the Prime Minister and an individual minister.
Most Prime Ministers have had a so-called "kitchen cabinet" consisting of their own trusted advisers who may be Cabinet members but are often trusted personal advisers on their own staff. In recent governments (generally from
Margaret Thatcher), and especially in that of
Tony Blair, it has been reported that many, or even all major decisions have been said to be made before cabinet meetings. This suggestion has been made by former ministers such as
Clare Short and
Chris Smith, in the media, and was made clear in the
Butler Review, where Blair's style of "sofa government" was censured.
Relationship with Parliament
Two key constitutional conventions regarding the accountability of the cabinet to
Parliament exist, collective cabinet responsibility and individual ministerial responsibility. These are derived from the fact the members of the cabinet are members of Parliament, and therefore accountable to it, because Parliament is
sovereign.
Cabinet collective responsibility means that members of the cabinet make decisions collectively, and are therefore responsible for the consequences of these decisions collectively. Therefore, when a
vote of no confidence is passed in Parliament, every minister and government official drawn from Parliament is expected to resign from the executive. So, logically, cabinet ministers who disagree with major decisions are expected to resign, as, to take a recent example,
Robin Cook did over the decision to attack
Iraq in 2003.
Individual ministerial responsibility is the convention that in their capacity as head of department, a minister is responsible for the actions, and therefore the failings too, of their department. Since the
civil service is permanent and anonymous, under circumstances of gross incompetence in their department, a minister 'must' resign. Perhaps surprisingly, this is relatively rare in practice, perhaps because, whilst many would consider incompetence more harmful than personal scandal, it is of less interest to more populist elements of the media, and less susceptible to unequivocal proof. The closest example in recent years is perhaps
Estelle Morris who resigned as
Secretary of State for Education and Skills in 2002 of her own volition (following severe problems and inaccuracies in the marking of
A-level exams). The circumstances under which this convention is followed are of course not possible to strictly define, and depend on many other factors. If a minister's reputation is seen to be tarnished by a personal scandal (for example when it was revealed that
David Mellor had an extra-marital affair) they very often resign. This often follows a short period of intense media and opposition pressure for them to do so. In general, despite numerous scandals, in Britain cases of serious corruption (e.g. acceptance of bribes) are relatively rare in comparison with many other democracies. One reason is because of the strength of the whip system and political parties in comparison to individual politicians. This means MPs and ministers have little capacity to be influenced by external groups offering money.
Questions can be tabled for Cabinet ministers in either houses of Parliament (a process called interpellation in political science), which can either be for written or oral reply. Cabinet ministers must answer them, either themselves or through a deputy. Written answers, which are usually more specific and detailed than oral questions are usually written by a
civil servant. Answers to written and oral questions are published in
Hansard. Parliament cannot dismiss individual ministers (though members may of course call for their resignation) but the House of Commons is able to determine the fate of the entire Government. If a
vote of no confidence in the Government passes, then The Queen will seek to restore confidence either by a dissolution of Parliament and the election of a new one, or by the acceptance of the resignation of her entire government collectively.
In the United Kingdom's parliamentary system, the
executive is not separate from the
legislature, since Cabinet members are drawn from Parliament. Moreover the executive tends to dominate the legislature for several reasons:
★ the
first-past-the-post voting system (which tends to give a large majority to the governing party)
★ the power of the
Government Whips (whose role is to ensure party members vote in accordance with an agreed line)
★ the "
payroll vote" (a term which refers to the fact that members of the governing party who are on the government payroll (e.g. as junior ministers) would be dismissed if they voted against the government).
The combined effect of the Prime Minister's ability to control Cabinet by circumventing effective discussion in Cabinet and the executive's ability to dominate parliamentary proceedings places the British Prime Minister in a position of great power that has been likened to an
elective dictatorship (a phrase coined by
Lord Hailsham in 1976). The relative impotence of Parliament to hold the Government of the day to account is often cited by the UK media as a justification for the vigour with which they question and challenge the Government.
In contemporary times, the nature of the cabinet has been criticized by some, largely because several Prime Ministers are perceived as acting in a "presidential" manner. Such an accusation was made at
Tony Blair as he was believed to have refrained from using the Cabinet as a collective decision-making body
[1]. These actions caused concern as it contravened the convention of the PM being "first among equals". In this sense, he was acting like a
US President, who (unlike the British PM) is not constitutionally bound to make decisions collectively with a cabinet.
Margaret Thatcher was also noted as being "presidential", in the capacity that she "forced" her own viewpoints onto her Cabinet. However the power that a Prime Minster has over his or her Cabinet colleagues is directly proportional to the amount of support that they have with their political parties and this is often related to whether the party considers them to be an electoral asset or liability. Further when a party is divided into factions a Prime Minster may be forced to include other powerful party members in the Cabinet for party political cohesion.
Shadow Cabinet
Main articles: Shadow Cabinet
The
Official Opposition (the party with the second largest number of elected members of Parliament, currently the
Conservative Party) is headed by a similar group called the ''
Shadow Cabinet''.
The parliamentary leadership of other opposition parties are conventional known as their ''
Frontbench Team'', but in recent years the
Liberal Democrat Party, currently the third-largest party in Parliament, have started to also use the term ''Shadow Cabinet''.
[2]
Current cabinet
Following his appointment as Prime Minister,
Gordon Brown announced his first Cabinet on
28 June 2007.
References
1. Blair cabinet 'took one decision in eight months'
2. http://www.libdems.org.uk/party/people/shadow.html
See also
★
Cabinet (government)
★
10 Downing Street
★
Her Majesty's Government
★
Departments of the United Kingdom Government
★
List of British ministries
★
External links
★
Cabinet Office website
★
Cabinet Office - List of Government Ministers
★
10 Downing Street - Her Majesty's Government (Cabinet members, listed in order of tenure in the Cabinet)
★
10 Downing Street - Full list of Her Majesty's Government (which includes various junior Ministers too)
★
BBC news website - The Cabinet
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
