Cabinet of the United Kingdom

In British politics, the Cabinet is comprised of the most senior government ministers, most of them heads of government departments with the title "Secretary of State". In the British system of government, the Cabinet is the key formal decision making body of the executive.

The Cabinet is led by the Prime Minister, although his role is traditionally described as primus inter pares — first among equals. All members of the Cabinet are appointed to their posts and can be dismissed by the Prime Minister. In formal constitutional terms, the Cabinet is a committee of the Privy Council; all Cabinet members are Privy Councillors and therefore use the style "The Right Honourable". The Prime Minister requires the approval of the monarch for any appointment to the Cabinet.

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. A key convention of the Cabinet is that of "cabinet collective responsibility". This is a convention that ministers must support, at least in public, the decisions that the Cabinet have made collectively. If a Minister cannot support government policy in public, they must resign.

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 ("adhoc 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 general discussion of day to day political issues; with major decisions being taken by Cabinet Committees or in informal groups. Many Prime Ministers have in effect 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.

Relationship with Parliament

A central aspect of the British system is that all Cabinet members are accountable to Parliament, and must be members of one of the Houses of Parliament. The Cabinet is traditionally drawn mainly from members of the House of Commons with some from the House of Lords. Questions can be tabled for Cabinet ministers in either houses of Parliament – which can either be for written or oral reply. Cabinet ministers must answer them, either themselves or through a deputy. 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 confidence must be restored either by a dissolution of Parliament and the election of a new one, or by the resignation of the 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.

Conduct and resignations

In addition to the concept "collective responsibility" (discussed above) Cabinet ministers are generally considered to be bound by a strong code of "individual responsibility". This often applies both to running of their department, and to their personal conduct.

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, often as the result of a short period of intense media and opposition pressure for them to do so. Similarly, if Cabinet ministers' management of their department is revealed to be extremely incompetent, they might also be expected to 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).

In general, despite numerous scandals, cases of serious corruption (e.g. acceptance of bribes) are relatively rare in Britain in comparison with many other democracies.

A 'presidential' Prime Minister?

In contemporary times, the nature of the cabinet has been criticised by some, largely because several Prime Ministers are perceived as acting in a 'presidential' manner. Such an accusation has been made at Tony Blair (the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) as he is believed to refrain from using the Cabinet as a collective decision making body. These actions have caused concern as it contravenes the convention of the PM being 'first among equals'. In this sense, he is acting like a US President, who (unlike the British PM) is not constitutionally bound to collectively make decisions with his cabinet. Margaret Thatcher was also noted as being 'presidential', in the capacity that she 'forced' her own viewpoints onto her cabinet.

A solution cited to combat the emergence of presidential Prime Ministers is the use of select committees to question the PM's actions. It also should be noted that British Prime Ministers can be presidential since the powers, responsibilites and duties of the British Prime Minister are largely convention. They are not codified or written into one single document, as is often the case with heads of government in other countries.

Shadow Cabinet

The official opposition party (the party with the second largest number of elected members of Parliament) is headed by a similar group called the Shadow Cabinet (the Conservative Party is the current official opposition). In recent years the third largest party (currently the Liberal Democrat Party) has also referred to its key figures as a Shadow Cabinet.

Current Cabinet

As of May 6 2005, the Cabinet consists of the following:

In a controversial reshuffle on 12 June 2003 it was announced that the government intended to abolish the ancient office of Lord Chancellor and create a new Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. Cabinet responsibility for Scotland and Wales was given to Alistair Darling and Peter Hain respectively, who have other responsibilities within the Cabinet. Although not the formal head of their departments, they will be referred to as Secretaries of State when acting in this capacity. The office of Lord Chancellor was not abolished and is instead reformed under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. The Lord Chancellor's Department has been renamed to the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the Lord Chancellor will hold the office of Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs too.

See also: cabinet (government), Departments of the United Kingdom Government, List of British ministries

External links

• Cabinet Office website
• Electronic list of ministerial responsibilities
• Her Majesty's Government (Cabinet Ministers)
• Full list of Her Majesty's Government (which includes various junior Ministers too).