Cabinet of the United Kingdom

The Cabinet of the United Kingdom is the collective decision-making body of Her
Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom, composed of the Prime Minister and
some 21 Cabinet ministers, the most senior of the government ministers.
Ministers of the Crown, and especially Cabinet ministers, are selected primarily from
the elected members of House of Commons, and also from the House of Lords, by the
Prime Minister. Cabinet ministers are heads of government departments, mostly with
the office of "Secretary of State for [function, e.g. Defence]". The collective coordinating function of the Cabinet is reinforced by the statutory position that all the
Secretaries of State jointly hold the same office, and can exercise the same powers.[1]
The Cabinet is the ultimate decision-making body of the executive within the
Westminster system of government in traditional constitutional theory. 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.[2]
The Cabinet is the executive committee of Her Majesty's Privy Council, a body which
has legislative, judicial and executive functions, and whose large membership includes
members of the Opposition. Its decisions are generally implemented either under the
existing powers of individual government departments, or by Orders in Council.

History
Until at least the 16th century, individual Officers of State had separate property, powers
and responsibilities granted with their separate offices by Royal Command, and the
Crown and the Privy Council constituted the only co-ordinating authorities. In England,
phrases such as "cabinet counsel", meaning advice given in private, in a cabinet in the
sense of a small room, to the monarch, occur from the late 16th century, and, given the
non-standardised spelling of the day, it is often hard to distinguish whether "council" or
"counsel" is meant.[3] The OED credits Francis Bacon in his Essays (1605) with the first
use of "Cabinet council", where it is described as a foreign habit, of which he
disapproves: "For which inconveniences, the doctrine of Italy, and practice of France, in
some kings times, hath introduced cabinet counsels; a remedy worse than the disease".
[4]
Charles I began a formal "Cabinet Council" from his accession in 1625, as his Privy
Council, or "private council", and the first recorded use of "cabinet" by itself for such a
body comes from 1644, and is again hostile and associates the term with dubious
foreign practices.[3]
Since the reign of King George I the Cabinet has been the principal executive group of
British government. Both he and George II made use of the system, as both were nonnative English speakers, unfamiliar with British politics, and thus relied heavily on
selected groups of advisers. The term "minister" came into being since the royal officers

"ministered" to the sovereign. The name and institution have been adopted by most
English-speaking countries, and the Council of Ministers or similar bodies of other
countries are often informally referred to as cabinets.
The modern Cabinet system was set up by Prime Minister David Lloyd George during
his premiership, 19161922, with a Cabinet Office and Secretariat, committee
structures, unpublished minutes, and a clearer relationship with departmental Cabinet
ministers. (The formal procedures, practice and proceedings of the Cabinet remain
largely unpublished, if not secret.)
This development grew out of the exigencies of the First World War, where faster and
better co-ordinated decisions across Government were seen as a crucial part of the war
effort. Decisions on mass conscription, co-ordination worldwide with other
governments across international theatres, and armament production tied into a general
war strategy that could be developed and overseen from an inner "War Cabinet". The
country went through successive crises after the war: the 1926 United Kingdom general
strike; the Great Depression of 192932; the rise of 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; and the re-armament and resurgence of
Germany from 1933, leading into another World War. All these demanded a highly
organised and centralised Government centred on the Cabinet.
This centralisation enhanced the power of the Prime Minister, who moved from being
the primus inter pares of the Asquith Cabinets of 1906 onwards, to the dominating
figures of David Lloyd George, Stanley Baldwin and Winston Churchill.

Composition
Cabinet ministers, like all ministers, are appointed and may be dismissed by the
monarch at pleasure (that is, they may be dismissed without notice or reason given,
although normally they are given a courteous option to resign), on the advice of the
Prime Minister. The allocation and transfer of responsibilities between ministers and
departments is also generally at the Prime Minister's discretion. The Cabinet has always
been led by the Prime Minister, whose unpaid office as such was traditionally described
as merely primus inter pares (first among equals), but today the Prime Minister is
clearly the preeminent head of government, with the effective power to appoint and
dismiss Cabinet ministers and to control the Cabinet's agenda. The extent to which the
Government is collegial presumably varies with political conditions and individual
personalities.
Any change to the composition of the Cabinet involving more than one appointment is
customarily referred to as a reshuffle; a routine reshuffle normally occurs every summer.
The total number of ministers allowed to be paid as "Cabinet ministers" is limited by the
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 number in addition to the Prime Minister is currently
21;[5] total cabinet composition fluctuating between 21 and 23.
The Cabinet Secretary is neither a Secretary of State or other minister, nor a member of
the Cabinet, but is the professional Head of Her Majesty's Civil Service. (The Cabinet

Secretaries of the devolved Scottish Government are Scottish Ministers, unrelated to the
U.K. Cabinet).
In formal constitutional terms, the Cabinet is a committee of Her Majesty's Most
Honourable Privy Council. All Cabinet members are made Privy Counsellors shortly
after appointment (if they are not already Privy Counsellors), but only selected Privy
Counsellors are appointed to the Cabinet or invited to attend. MPs and peers in the
Cabinet therefore use the style "the Right Honourable" (the Rt Hon.).[6]
Recently the Cabinet has been made up almost entirely of members of the House of
Commons. The Leader of the House of Lords is necessarily a member of the House of
Lords. The Lord Chancellor was, until recently, always a member of the House of
Lords, though the current holder is a member of the House of Commons. Otherwise it is
now rare for a peer to sit in the Cabinet. Until the re-appointment to the cabinet of Lord
Mandelson on 3 October 2008, 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. Before then, 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. The number of junior ministers who are peers has
increased since 1997.
Occasionally cabinet members are selected from outside the Houses of Parliament and if
necessary granted a peerage. Harold Wilson appointed Frank Cousins and Patrick
Gordon Walker to the 1964 cabinet despite their not being MPs at the time. On 3
October 2008 Peter Mandelson, at the time of appointment not a member of either
House, became Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and
was immediately made a life peer. During the First World War, the South African
politician Jan Smuts served in Lloyd George's War Cabinet without ever becoming a
member of either house of the British parliament.
There are some 100 junior members of the Government who are not members of the
Cabinet, including Ministers of State and Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State; and
unpaid Parliamentary Private Secretaries are in practice apprentice ministers on the
payroll vote. Some of them may be Privy Counsellors, or may be appointed to the Privy
Council as a mark of distinction, without becoming Cabinet ministers. Equally, some
junior ministers below Cabinet level may be invited to all Cabinet meetings as a matter
of course. The Attorney General for England and Wales together with the chair of the
governing political party, are customarily included, and other members of the
Government can be invited at the Prime Minister's discretion, either regularly or ad hoc.
In recent years, more non-members of Her Majesty's 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 the Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister under Tony
Blair, with a distinctly separate role from the Cabinet Secretary/Head of the Civil
Service.
A photograph is taken of each new Cabinet in the garden or drawing room at 10
Downing Street.[7]

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.
Despite the custom of meeting on a Thursday, after the appointment of Gordon Brown
as Prime Minister the meeting day was switched to Tuesday.[8] However, since becoming
prime minister, David Cameron has held his cabinet meetings on Thursdays again.[citation
needed]
The length of meetings varies 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 announcement or ratification of decisions taken in committee, by informal
groups, or in bi-lateral discussions between the Prime Minister and individual
colleagues, with discussion in Cabinet itself very limited. The Prime Minister normally
has a weekly audience with the Queen thereafter.
The Cabinet has numerous sub-committees which focus on 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. Consequent Orders in Council are normally
made by the Queen-in-Council with a quorum of the Privy Council, which meets
monthly or ad hoc.
The Institute for Government claims that the reduced number of full Cabinet meetings
signify "that the role of Cabinet as a formal decision-making body has been in decline
since the war."[citation needed]. This view has been contradicted by Vernon Bogdanor, a British
constitutional expert, who claims that "the Cabinet has, in fact, been strengthened by the
decline in full meetings, as it allows more matters to be transferred to cabinet
committees. Thus, business is done more efficiently."[9]
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 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.

Location of Cabinet Meetings

Cabinet Meetings have been held at Chequers and in one case at the Grand Hotel,
Brighton.[10]

Parliamentary accountability
There are two key constitutional conventions regarding the accountability of cabinet
ministers to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, cabinet collective responsibility,
and individual ministerial responsibility.

These are derived from the fact the members of the cabinet are Members of Parliament,
and therefore accountable to the House of which they are a member. The Queen will
only appoint a Prime Minister whose Government can command the support of the
House of Commons, which alone can grant supply to a Government by authorising
taxes; and the House of Commons expects all ministers to be personally accountable to
Parliament. In practice, Cabinet ministers will usually have a junior minister to
represent their department in the House of Lords.
Cabinet collective responsibility means that members of the cabinet make major
decisions collectively, and are therefore collectively responsible for the consequences
of these decisions. Therefore, no minister may speak against government decisions, and
if a vote of no confidence is passed in Parliament, every minister and government
official drawn from Parliament is expected to resign from the executive. Cabinet
ministers who disagree with major decisions are expected to resign, Robin Cook being a
recent example over the decision to go to war with Iraq in 2003. The principle of
collective responsibility is not impaired by the fact that decisions may be made in a
cabinet committee rather than by the full cabinet.
Individual ministerial responsibility is the convention that in their capacity as head
of department, a minister is personally responsible for the actions and failings of
their department. Under circumstances of gross failure in their department, a minister is
expected to resign (and may be forced to do so by the Prime Minister), while their civil
servants remain permanent and anonymous. This is relatively rare in practice, perhaps
because administrative failure is of less interest to the media than personal scandal, 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
following severe problems and inaccuracies in the marking of A-level exams. The
circumstances under which this convention is followed are not possible to define
strictly, 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 luridly revealed that David
Mellor had an extramarital 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 the strength
of the whip system, political parties and the civil service, in comparison to individual
politicians. This means MPs and ministers have little capacity to be influenced by
improper pressure.[citation needed]
Parliamentary Questions can be tabled for ministers in either house of Parliament for
either written or oral reply. These may be "planted" questions for the advantage of the
Government, or antagonistic questions from the Opposition, or may genuinely seek
information. Cabinet ministers must respond, either themselves or through a deputy,
although the answers do not always fully answer the question. 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 or a House may call
for their resignation, or formally resolve to reduce their salary by a nominal amount),
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.
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-postvoting 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 the party line)

the "payroll vote" (a term which refers to the fact that members of parliament of
the governing majority party will wish to be promoted to an executive position,
and then be on the government's payroll).

collective ministerial responsibility requires members of the government to vote

with the government on whipped votes, or else resign their position.

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 inability 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 criticised by some, largely
because recently 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.[11] 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 Minister 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 Minister
may be forced to include other powerful party members in the Cabinet for party political
cohesion.
The Cabinet's formal relationship with Parliament, or at least the Prime Minister's hopes
for it, are set out in the Ministerial Code.

Current cabinet
Cabinet of the United Kingdom[12][13]

Portfolio
Minister
Cabinet ministers
Prime Minister
First Lord of the Treasury
The Rt Hon.David CameronMP
Minister for the Civil Service
Chancellor of the Exchequer
Second Lord of the Treasury
The Rt Hon.George OsborneMP
First Secretary of State
Secretary of State for Foreign and
The Rt Hon.Philip HammondMP
Commonwealth Affairs
Secretary of State for the Home
The Rt Hon.Theresa MayMP
Department
Secretary of State for Justice
The Rt Hon.Michael GoveMP
Lord Chancellor
Secretary of State for Defence
The Rt Hon.Michael FallonMP
Secretary of State for Business, Innovation
and Skills
The Rt Hon.Sajid JavidMP
President of the Board of Trade
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions The Rt Hon.Iain Duncan SmithMP
Secretary of State for Health
The Rt Hon.Jeremy HuntMP
Secretary of State for Communities and
The Rt Hon.Greg ClarkMP
Local Government
Secretary of State for Education
The Rt Hon.Nicky MorganMP
Minister for Women and Equalities
Secretary of State for International
The Rt Hon.Justine GreeningMP
Development
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate
The Rt Hon.Amber RuddMP
Change
Secretary of State for Transport
The Rt Hon.Patrick McLoughlinMP
Secretary of State for Scotland
The Rt Hon.David MundellMP
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Rt Hon.Theresa VilliersMP
Secretary of State for Wales
The Rt Hon.Stephen CrabbMP
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and
The Rt Hon.John WhittingdaleOBE MP
Sport
Secretary of State for Environment, Food
The Rt Hon.Elizabeth TrussMP
and Rural Affairs
Leader of the House of Commons
The Rt Hon.Chris GraylingMP
Lord President of the Council
Leader of the House of Lords
The Rt Hon.The Baroness Stowell of
Lord Privy Seal
BeestonMBEPC
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Rt Hon.Oliver LetwinMP
Also attending Cabinet meetings
Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Rt Hon.Greg HandsMP
Chief Whip in the House of Commons
The Rt Hon.Mark HarperMP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury
Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Rt Hon.Matthew HancockMP
Paymaster General

Attorney General
Minister of State for Employment
Minister of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs
Minister without Portfolio
Minister of State for Small Business,
Industry and Enterprise

The Rt Hon.Jeremy WrightQCMP

The Rt Hon.Priti

PatelMP
The Rt Hon.The Baroness Anelay of St
John'sDBEPC
The Rt Hon.Robert HalfonMP
The Rt Hon.Anna

SoubryMP

Shadow Cabinet
The Official Opposition (the non-government party with the largest number of elected
Members of Parliament currently the Labour Party) is led by the Shadow Cabinet,
supported by numerous junior Opposition frontbenchers.
The Scottish National Party, as the political party with the third largest number of seats,
is still to announce its "Alternative Opposition Shadow Cabinet". Its party leaders are
considering what to call their frontbenchers as parliamentary opposition, eg.SNP
frontbench team.[14]