King Charles III
51-885: His (or Her) Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for India , known for short as the India secretary or the Indian secretary , was the British Cabinet minister and the political head of the India Office responsible for the governance of the British Indian Empire , including Aden , Burma and the Persian Gulf Residency . The post was created in 1858 when the East India Company 's rule in Bengal ended and India , except for
102-532: A central role in the allocation of government money to departments. It originated in 1981 under the informal title of "Star Chamber" as an ad hoc committee (MISC 62) which could handle appeals over spending disputes, rather than having these be dealt with by the full Cabinet. An appeal to Cabinet was still possible, but this right was rarely exercised. The original name refers to the Star Chamber court noted for its secret, arbitrary and brutal decisions. The committee
153-525: A parallel Cabinet for military policy which existed from 1904 until 1939, included ministers, heads of the armed services, and civil servants. Between 1997 and 2001, there was a Ministerial Consultative Committee with the Liberal Democratic Party which included senior Liberal Democrats as well as Labour ministers. Until 1992, the list of cabinet committees, their membership, and their terms of reference were secret, with rare exceptions. During
204-583: A political body – that is to say the Cabinet – which may have to make policy decisions upon the basis of the legal advice the law officers have given." The Cabinet is a committee of the Privy Council (though this interpretation has been challenged) and, as such, all Cabinet ministers must be privy counsellors. Members of the Cabinet are by convention chosen from members of the two houses of Parliament, as convention dictates that ministers may only be recruited from
255-458: A remedy worse than the disease". 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. There were ministries in England led by the chief minister , which was a personage leading
306-629: Is appointed, they have been granted a customary peerage. The Cabinet is now made up almost entirely of members of the House of Commons. Civil servants from the Cabinet Secretariat and special advisers (on the approval of the prime minister) can also attend Cabinet meetings, but neither take part in discussions. It has been suggested that the modern Cabinet is too large, including by former Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill and scholars Robert Hazell and Rodney Brazier . Hazell has suggested merging
357-507: Is directed by the Cabinet , a group of senior government ministers led by the Prime Minister . Most of the day-to-day work of the Cabinet is carried out by Cabinet committees , rather than by the full Cabinet. Each committee has its own area of responsibility, and their decisions are binding on the entire Cabinet. The details of the committee structure and membership are at the discretion of
408-570: Is needed. When the Prime Minister is unable to attend Cabinet or the chair and any deputy chair of a Cabinet committee are absent, the next most senior minister in the ministerial ranking should take the chair. Committee membership is limited to ministers, but non-ministers may attend in some cases. In particular, the National Security Council is routinely attended by senior military, intelligence and security officials. Members of
459-616: Is the "lead" for the emergency in question. That subcommittee however has disestablished as of 2021. During the post-Second World War period, in addition to standing committees, there were ad hoc committees that were convened to handle a single issue. These were normally short-lived. Each was given a prefix of Gen or Misc and a number. Gen 183, for example, was the Committee on Subversive Activities. Between 1945 and 1964, Gen (for general) committees were sequentially numbered from 1 to 881 in order of formation. Committee minutes and papers follow
510-534: 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 19th-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
561-473: 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, 1916–1922, 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
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#1732851453578612-484: The Government Secure Intranet ). Notes taken at meetings for the purpose of preparing the official minutes are destroyed once the minutes have been written. The minutes do not generally link points made in discussion to the specific people who made them. Future governments may not be permitted to see the cabinet papers of their predecessors, if there has been a change of party. Access in this case requires
663-606: The House of Commons and the House of Lords . The Ministerial Code says that the business of the Cabinet (and cabinet committees ) is mainly questions of major issues of policy, questions of critical importance to the public and questions on which there is an unresolved argument between departments. The work of the Cabinet is scrutinised by the Shadow Cabinet , made up of members of the Official Opposition . Until at least
714-839: The Princely States , was brought under the direct administration of the government in Whitehall in London , beginning the official colonial period under the British Empire . In 1937, the India Office was reorganised which separated Burma and Aden under a new Burma Office , but the same secretary of state headed both departments and a new title was established as His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for India and Burma . The India Office and its secretary of state were abolished in August 1947, when
765-605: The Second World War , details of the War Cabinet structure were communicated to Parliament; Winston Churchill had previously announced a Standing Committee on National Expenditure in his 1925 Budget statement. The existence and membership of the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee was announced in 1963, coinciding with the amalgamation of the service ministries into a single Ministry of Defence . Margaret Thatcher confirmed
816-970: The United Kingdom granted independence in the Indian Independence Act , which created two new independent dominions , India and Pakistan . Burma soon achieved independence separately in early 1948. David Lloyd George ( Coalition ) Cabinet of the United Kingdom King Charles III [REDACTED] William, Prince of Wales [REDACTED] Charles III ( King-in-Council ) [REDACTED] Starmer ministry ( L ) Keir Starmer ( L ) Angela Rayner ( L ) ( King-in-Parliament ) [REDACTED] Charles III [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] The Lord Reed The Lord Hodge Andrew Bailey Monetary Policy Committee The Cabinet of
867-403: The constitutional convention of collective ministerial responsibility . Cabinet ministers, like all ministers, are appointed and may be dismissed by the monarch without notice or reason, 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
918-459: 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 . The Institute for Government claims that the reduced number of full Cabinet meetings signifies "that the role of Cabinet as a formal decision-making body has been in decline since
969-469: 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
1020-544: The Cabinet Office in November 2022. In addition to cabinet committees there are five Mission Boards on growth, clean energy, safer streets, opportunities and health. The Mission Boards are chaired by the respective lead Secretaries of State with a remit to oversee the relevant mission. There are several committees for which the Cabinet Office is administratively responsible, but which are not Cabinet committees. These include
1071-567: The Cabinet remain largely unpublished. 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
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#17328514535781122-540: The Cabinet. The total number of Cabinet ministers who are entitled to a salary is capped by statute at 21, plus the Lord Chancellor , who is paid separately. Some ministers may be designated as also attending Cabinet, like the Attorney General , as "...it has been considered more appropriate, in recent times at any rate, that the independence and detachment of his office should not be blurred by his inclusion in
1173-511: The English government for the monarch. Despite primary accountability to the monarch, these ministries, having a group of ministers running the country, served as a predecessor of the modern perspective of cabinet. After the ministry of Lord Stanhope and Lord Sunderland collapsed, Sir Robert Walpole rose to power as First Lord of the Treasury . Since the reign of King George I the Cabinet has been
1224-713: 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. The classic view of Cabinet Government was laid out by Walter Bagehot in The English Constitution (1867) in which he described the prime minister as the primus-inter-pares (" first among equals "). The view was questioned by Richard Crossman in The Myths of Cabinet Government (1972) and by Tony Benn . They were both members of
1275-449: The House of Commons or the House of Lords, although this convention has been broken in the past for short periods. Patrick Gordon Walker is perhaps the most notable exception: he was appointed to the Cabinet despite losing his seat in the 1964 general election , and resigned from Cabinet after running and losing in a by-election in January 1965. Sometimes, when a minister from neither House
1326-557: The Labour governments of the 1960s and thought that the position of the prime minister had acquired more power so that prime ministerial government was a more apt description. Crossman stated that the increase in the power of the prime minister resulted from power of centralised political parties, the development of a unified civil service, and the growth of the prime minister's private office and Cabinet secretariat . Graham Allen (a government whip during Tony Blair's first government) makes
1377-475: The Prime Minister . The Prime Minister is free to reorganize committees, assign responsibilities, and can appoint or dismiss committee members freely. The sole limitation is the requirement that Cabinet ministers must be sworn members of the Privy Council , since the Cabinet itself is a committee of the Privy Council. Although there have been many changes since the Cabinet committee system was first developed in
1428-540: The Prime Minister's office – including the Prime Minister themselves – may attend any committee. The Prime Minister's attendance does not mean that they will chair the committee, despite being the most senior Cabinet member present, though they may choose to do so. In the 2010 coalition government , each Cabinet committee included members of both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats . Furthermore,
1479-575: The United Kingdom is the senior decision-making body of the Government of the United Kingdom . A committee of the Privy Council , it is chaired by the Prime Minister and its members include Secretaries of State and senior Ministers of State . Members of the Cabinet are appointed by the Prime Minister and are by convention chosen from members of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom ,
1530-521: The allocation each department is to receive. The Legislation committee allocates time for government bills to be considered in Parliament , coordinates the writing and handling of these bills in general, and is responsible for the Queen's Speech . Previously, there had been two committees, one for considering future legislation and another to deal with bills during their passage through Parliament. Departments who wish to make new primary legislation must apply to
1581-520: The approval of the former Prime Minister, or of the Leader of the Opposition . The few exceptions relate to papers of an expressly non-political nature, such as legal advice or international agreements. Retired ministers wishing to write their memoirs are given access to papers from their tenure, but are usually not allowed to borrow them from the Cabinet Office archive. This table follows the document issued by
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1632-401: The cabinet has been gradually reduced over the last several decades, with some claiming its role has been usurped by a "prime ministerial" government. In the modern political era, the prime minister releases information concerning the ministerial ranking in the form of a list detailing the seniority of all Cabinet ministers. The centralisation of the Cabinet in the early 20th century enhanced
1683-618: The case in The Last Prime Minister: Being Honest About the UK Presidency (2003) that the office of prime minister has presidential powers, as did Michael Foley in The British Presidency (2000). 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
1734-580: The committee for a slot in the legislative programme , as well as obtaining clearance from the relevant policy committee. In an emergency, the National Security Council (Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingencies) subcommittee can meet in an operational configuration. This arrangement was previously named as the Civil Contingencies Committee . In this case, the chair is taken by the minister for whichever government department
1785-548: The continuing existence of this committee in the House of Commons in 1979, along with standing committees for Economic Strategy, Home and Social Affairs, and Legislation. The secrecy was due to the concern that public knowledge of Cabinet procedure would lead to a loss of faith in collective responsibility (if it became known that only a subset of the Cabinet had been involved in making a given decision) and undue pressure being put on committee chairs once their specific policy responsibilities became known. Whether decisions were made by
1836-480: The custom of meeting on a Thursday, after the appointment of Gordon Brown , the meeting day was switched to Tuesday. However, when David Cameron became prime minister, he held his cabinet meetings on Thursdays again. Upon Theresa May's tenure, she switched the cabinet meetings back to Tuesday. The length of meetings varies according to the style of the Prime Minister and political conditions, but modern meetings can be as short as 30 minutes. Ministers are bound by
1887-419: The early twentieth century, the committees for foreign and military policy, domestic policy, economic policy, and the government's legislative agenda have been more or less permanent fixtures. These and many other committees are standing committees , which have a broad remit; others are ad hoc committees , which are established to deal with specific matters. Ad hoc committees are rarer now than throughout most of
1938-535: The entire Cabinet, or by a committee, is not revealed at present. Cabinet committees are shadowed by "official committees" made up of civil servants from the relevant departments. Official committees follow a thirty-year secrecy rule with respect to their existence and membership. Most committees exist for the coordination of policy in some specific area. Some committees, however, have a special role in managing government business, and accordingly have different procedures. The Public Expenditure Committee (PEX) plays
1989-516: The general pattern was for committees to have a chair and a deputy chair, one from each party. There was a Coalition Committee, and an operational working group, to handle appeals over coalition disputes and to plan future policy. Former committees with non-ministers as full members include the Economic Advisory Council, whose membership was made up of a combination of ministers and experts in economics. The Committee of Imperial Defence ,
2040-573: The media, and was made clear in the Butler Review , where Blair's style of "sofa government" was censured. 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 Quinton Hogg, Lord Hailsham in 1976). The relative inability of Parliament to hold
2091-414: The non-standardised spelling of the day, it is often hard to distinguish whether "council" or "counsel" is meant. 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;
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2142-526: The offices of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland , Scotland, and Wales into one Secretary of State for the Union, in a department into which Rodney Brazier has suggested adding a minister of state for England with responsibility for English local government . Most cabinet meetings take place in the Cabinet Room of 10 Downing Street ; however, they have been known to take place in other places. Despite
2193-942: The party considers them to be an electoral asset or liability. Also 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 Prime Minister's personal power is also curtailed if their party is in a power-sharing arrangement, or a formal coalition with another party (as happened in the coalition government of 2010 to 2015). United Kingdom cabinet committee [REDACTED] William, Prince of Wales [REDACTED] Charles III ( King-in-Council ) [REDACTED] Starmer ministry ( L ) Keir Starmer ( L ) Angela Rayner ( L ) ( King-in-Parliament ) [REDACTED] Charles III [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] The Lord Reed The Lord Hodge Andrew Bailey Monetary Policy Committee The British government
2244-439: The prime minister, whose originally unpaid office as such was traditionally described as merely primus inter pares (first among equals), but today the prime minister is 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 varies with political conditions and individual personalities. The Cabinet
2295-409: The principal executive group of British government. Both he and George II made use of the system, as both were not native 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
2346-449: The same secrecy rules as for the full Cabinet. Documents are generally handled on a need-to-know basis, and so may not be available to ministers who do not serve on the relevant committee. Some materials may be classified as being available exclusively to the named members of the committee, and particularly sensitive papers may be kept in a secure room and read only under supervision. Papers may be distributed physically or electronically (via
2397-416: The twentieth century. Many matters are now expected to be resolved bilaterally between departments, or through more informal discussion, rather than requiring the formation of a committee. The 2015 government introduced "Implementation Taskforces" to address specific cross-cutting priorities. These are to report to the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and Cabinet approval is still required if collective agreement
2448-467: The various 'official' committees, which mostly shadow the Cabinet committees but with civil servants rather than ministers as members. Some others are: An approximate count of committees up to and during the Second World War was given by Wilson as follows. This excludes committees which did not have at least one meeting (several of these existed solely as a means for documents to be circulated among
2499-797: The war." 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." Most prime ministers have had a so-called "kitchen cabinet" consisting of their own trusted advisers who may be Cabinet members but are often non-cabinet 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 including Clare Short and Chris Smith , in
2550-573: The war: the 1926 general strike ; the Great Depression of 1929–32; 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 the Second World War . The Prime Minister decides the membership and attendees of
2601-524: Was made permanent under John Major , under the name "EDX", and placed under the chairmanship of the Chancellor of the Exchequer . From 1998 to 2010 the same committee (by then called "PX", and later "PSX") also monitored departments' fulfillment of Public service agreements . While such agreements are no longer used, the committee retains its role in examining departmental expenditure, and will advise Cabinet on
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