The crown

I I I

THE HOUSE OF LORDS - THE GOVERNMENT - THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

Unit ten the government

When the media talk about ‘the government’, they usually mean one of two things. In one meaning, it refers to all the politicians who run government departments (there are several politicians in each department) or have other special responsibilities, such as managing the activities of Parliament. There are normally about a hundred members of ‘the government’ in this sense. Although there are various ranks, each with their own titles, members of the government are usually known as ‘ministers’. Unlike in the USA and some other countries in Europe, it is rare for a person from outside Parliament to become a minister.

The other meaning of the term ‘the government’ is more limited. It refers only to the most powerful of these politicians, namely, the Prime Minister and the other members of the cabinet. There are usually about twenty people in the cabinet. Most of them are the heads of the government departments.

• Ministers and departments: Most heads of government departments have the title ‘Secretary of State’ (as in, for example, ‘Secretary of State for the Environment’). The minister in charge of Britain’s relations with the outside world is known to everybody as the ‘Foreign Secretary’. The one in charge of public safety inside the country is the ‘Home Secretary’. Their departments are called ‘The Foreign and Commonwealth Office’ and ‘The Home Office’ respectively. The words ‘secretary’ and ‘office’ reflect the history of government in Britain, in which government departments were once part of the domestic arrangements of the monarch.

• Whitehall - the seat of government. ‘Her Majesty’s Government’ governs in the name of the Queen, and its hub, Downing Street, lies in Whitehall, a short walk from Parliament. Following a general election, the Queen invites the leader of the majority (or largest, in the absence of an overall majority) party represented in the Commons to form a government on her behalf. Government ministers are almost invariably members of the House of Commons, but infrequently members of the House of Lords are appointed. All government ministers, even the Prime Minister, who are members of the Commons, continue to represent the parliamentary ‘constituencies’ which elected them.

Because of the enormous increase in government business, all senior government ministers – most of whom have the title of Secretary of State – have junior ministers (Ministers of State or Parliamentary undersecretaries) to help with the workload. They are all subject to the rules of collective responsibility and must not disagree publicly with government policy.

The cabinet

Most governments consist of about 100 ministers, but the essential core is the Cabinet, the 20 or so most senior ministers invited by the Prime Minister to belong to it. Cabinet government demands collective responsibility and confidentiality. Within the Cabinet the Prime Minister is meant to be first among equals (primus inter pares – Latin). In theory this encourages balance and prudence in both policy and action. In practice the Cabinet principle can give rise to tension. While a Prime Minister must give strong leadership, he or she must allow for each minister to exercise responsibility within their field and should encourage collective decision-making on controversial issues, particularly ones beyond the responsibility of one ministry. In fact Prime Ministers have much more power than first among equals. They enjoy undisputed political leadership. Ministers must obey their will, or persuade the Prime Minister of their own point of view. If a clash of wills cannot be resolved, the minister must resign.

The position of a Prime Minister (PM) is in direct contrast to that of a monarch. While the Queen appears to have a lot of power but in reality has very little, the PM appears not to have much power but in reality has a very great deal.

The strength of the PM is apparent from the modern phenomenon known as the ‘cabinet reshuffle’. It is the habit of the PM to change his or her cabinet quite frequently (at least once every two years). The second reason for a modern PM’s dominance over other ministers is the power of the public image. And third, it is the PM who makes decisions about government policies as a whole. The convention of collective responsibility then means that the rest of the government has to go along with whatever the PM has decided.

• The history of the Cabinet is a good example of the tendency towards secrecy in British politics. It started in the eighteenth century as in informal grouping of important ministers and officials of the royal household. It had no formal status. Officially, the government was run by the Privy Council, a body of a hundred or more people who reported directly to the monarch (but not to each other). Over the years, the cabinet gradually took over effective power. The Privy Council is now a merely ceremonial body. Among others, it includes all present ministers and the most important past ministers. In the past 100 years, the cabinet itself has become more and more ‘official’ and publicly recognized. It has also grown in size, and so is now often too rigid and formal a body to make the real decisions. In the last 50 years, there have been unofficial ‘inners cabinets’ (comprising the Prime Minister and a few other important ministers). It is here, and in cabinet committees, that much of the real decision-making takes place.

Once a week, the cabinet meets and takes decisions about new policies, the implementation of existing policies and the running of the various government departments. Because all government members must be seen to agree, exactly who says what at these meetings, is a closely guarded secret. The reports of the meetings, which are circulated to government departments, summarize the topics discussed and the decisions taken but they never refer to individuals.