Unit 2: The Prime Minister/Cabinet - Powers and changes

Brief notes explaining how the prime Minister and the executive system works in the UK.

 The Prime Minister

• The first person generally held by historians to be the first Prime Minister was Robert Walpole
• Walpole established the basic features of the office and under him one can see the essential constitutional division between the monarch and the monarch’s first minister
• The former remained as head of state, but the latter became the head of government
• Up to 2010, 52 men and one woman have been appointed Prime Minister
• Several figures such as Gladstone have held the office on multiple occasions over the years
• Some Prime Ministers have gone down in history as major include:
• William Pitt the elder
• William Pitt the younger
• William Gladstone
• Benjamin Disraeli
• David Lloyd George
• Winston Churchill
• Others have been largely forgotten from history for a variety of reasons
• Seven Prime Ministers have died in office, though the last was Lord Palmerston in 1865
• Some have been short-lived premierships. The Duke of Wellington’s second term in office lasted less than one month
• In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was not uncommon for the Prime Minister to sit in the House of Lords
• Most Prime Ministers have entered office having served an apprenticeship in other senior ministerial offices
• The most recent Prime Minister never to have held ministerial office before entering No. 10 Downing Street was David Cameron
• The Prime Minister heads the government
• To fully understand the premiership, it is necessary to look at the powers that inhere in the office, as well as the constraints that operate
• It is also important to examine the person who holds the office as often this can make a great deal of difference to the role and powers of the Prime Minister

The office of Prime Minister

• In the eighteenth century, the person holding the premiership had little by way of a formal office
• By this we mean a significant body of administrative support
• Cabinet meeting were often disorganised with no one taking notes and civil servants had to approach ministers to discover what had been decided
• The situation changed notably in the twentieth century with the creation in 1916 of a Cabinet Secretariat and the appointment of a Cabinet Secretary
• The impetus for the change was the need for efficiency in time of war, but the structure was maintained in peacetime
• The Secretariat served to ensure the recording and coordination of decisions, operating under the person who chaired the Cabinet – the Prime Minister
• The position of the Prime Minister was also strengthened in 1919 with the creation of a unified civil service, under a Permanent Secretary as its head

Downing Street

• Over time, Downing Street has expanded (The Number 10 Machine)
• In addition to the private office, linking the Prime Minister to Whitehall, the PM’s Office has acquired a political office
• This helps links them to the party
• There is also a press office linking them to the media
• The Prime Minister has also acquired a body of policy advisers

The Central Policy Review Staff

• In 1970, a small body of advisers – the Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS), commonly known as ‘the think tank’ – was established
• It comprised some political appointees and seconded civil servants to advise the Cabinet on policy issues
• It answered to the Cabinet through the Prime Minister, but came to be overshadowed by a body of advisers answering solely to the PM, the No. 10 Policy Unit
• The CPRS was wound up in 1983
• The Policy Unit comprises a body of high-flying political advisers, including some policy specialists

Chief of staff and policy units

• Margaret Thatcher also appointed a Chief of Staff
• Tony Blair created a Chief of Staff, but with more extensive powers than those exercised by his predecessor in the Thatcher Government
• These included the power to give directions to civil servants
• Tony Blair also created a range of policy units that often reported directly to him
• There were designed to enhance joined-up government

The growth of Downing Street

• The expansion of the Prime Minister’s Office has meant that there are now approximately two hundred people working in 10 Downing Street
• Though the Prime Minister’s Office is formally a part of the Cabinet Office, it nonetheless now has its own Permanent Secretary
• The size of the staff supporting the Prime Minister is such that not all can be accommodated in 10 Downing Street
• The Permanent Secretary, for example, is housed principally in 12 Downing Street

The role of the Prime Minster

• The Prime Minister has several key roles. These include:
• Head of the executive
• Head of government policy
• Party leader
• Head appointing officer
• Party leader in Parliament
• Senior UK representative abroad

The Powers of the Prime Minister

• The Prime Minister is the most powerful person in government, but exercises no statutory powers
• Instead his powers exist by convention
• His main powers include:
  • Appoints, shuffles and dismisses ministers
  • Chairs the Cabinet
  • Controls Whitehall
  • Dispenses honours and public appointments

Appoints, shuffles and dismisses ministers

• The Prime Minister chooses who else will be in Government
• A new Prime Minister appoints over one hundred ministers
• Which ministers will form the Cabinet, and their ranking within Cabinet, is a matter for the PM
• However often their ability to appoint people is dependent upon their strength within the party
• Appointing and moving ministers may be undertaken not only for the purposes of reward but also to reflect the PM’s political values

Chairing the Cabinet

• The PM not only decides who will be in the Cabinet, but also decides:
  • When it will meet
  • What it will discuss
  • What it has decided
• The Cabinet normally meets once a week, but under some PMs it has met more frequently
• The agenda is determined by the PM and the manner of discussion is also influenced by them
• Some premiers encourage free-ranging discussion, others prefer more concise contributions
• The PM not only decides the composition of Cabinet but also what Cabinet committees will be created
• The Cabinet, a large body meeting once a week, is not in a position to transact all the business of government
• Most policy proposals are considered by Cabinet committees
• Only if there is disagreement in committee (and if the chair of the committee agrees) is an issue referred to Cabinet
• The PM decides who will chair the committees as well as who will serve on them

Control of Whitehall

• The Prime Minister decides who shall be the ministerial heads of departments
• He or she can also create, abolish or merge departments, as well as determine who shall be the civil service heads of those departments
• The senior civil service appointments are also the responsibility of the Prime Minister
• Tony Blair was very  keen to press for civil service change in order to enhance policy delivery and to combat what he termed ‘departmentalitis’

Dispensing honours and public appointments

• The PM formally advises the monarch on who should receive particular honours and who should be appointed to public posts in the gift of the Crown
• This means that in effect the PM determines who gets what honours
• These can include peerages but also who is appointed to various public bodies like the board of the BBC
• Equally roles in certain universities and the church can be in the gift of the PM
• Because there are so many, in most cases the PM employs a team of advisors to deal with this work for him or her

Other powers

• The Prime Minister has several other important powers
• For instance the power to advise the monarch as to when a general election shall be held
• The PM’s political capital is also enhanced by other aspects of his office as well as by the fact that he is party leader
• As head of government, the PM attends various international gatherings
• The importance of the office also means that there is significant media attention attached to it

The person in number 10

• The reasons why people become Prime Minister vary from PM to PM
• The skills necessary to exercise the powers of the office also vary
• Some enter No. 10 out of a sense of public duty or simply because they are ambitious for office
• Norton (1987,1988) identifies four main types of PM:
  • Innovators
  • Reformers
  • Egoists
  • Balancers
• Innovators seek power
• They fight to become Prime Minister – in order to achieve a particular programme, one that they have crafted
• If necessary, they are prepared to push and cajole their party into supporting them in carrying out the programme
• A leading example is Margaret Thatcher
• She pursued her goals with vigour often in the face of opposition from her own party
• Reformersseek power in order to achieve a particular programme of public policy
• However in this case it is largely dictated by the party itself
• Prime Minister Clement Attlee led a reforming postwar Labour Government
• The parties policies were clearly set out in the 1945 Labour Party manifesto, Let Us Face the Future
• Egoists seek power for the sake of having power
• They are principally concerned with the here and now of British politics, operating in order to maintain their occupancy of No. 10
• They will take whatever action they consider necessary to protect their position
• Harold Wilson was a good example of an egoist, variously contending with what he saw as attempts by other ministers to oust him
• It is arguable that Tony Blair also falls under that category
• Balancers seek to maintain stability in society
• They are concerned with the current state of society, seeking to ameliorate tensions and avoiding policies that may prove socially divisive
• They fall into two types: those who seek power and those who are conscripted
• Balancers by their nature tend to be Conservatives, such as Harold Macmillan, but the category also includes Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan
• Prime Ministers personalities can change significantly over time do often one person can fit several different categories

The powers of the Prime Minister

• The powers of the Prime Minister are thus substantial, though how and why they are utilised will differ from one Prime Minister to another
• The extent to which a Prime Minister achieves desired outcomes will also be dependent on others
• The occupant of 10 Downing Street does not live in a vacuum
• The Prime Minister has to work in a political environment that includes a large number of political actors, and their number – as we shall see – has increased in recent years
• This includes the cabinet as a key actor

The Cabinet

• The cabinet has its origins in the Privy Council set up to advise the King
• The Cabinet developed in the eighteenth century and, under the Hanoverian kings, it met regularly without the king being present
• Though the Cabinet came to work as a distinct body, the membership nonetheless was determined by the king
• With the widening of the franchise and the growth of parliament the cabinet broke free of the control of the monarch in the 19th century

The role of cabinet

• The Cabinet remains a core component of British government
• It has five main roles:
  • Approving policy
  • Resolving disputes
  • Constraining the Prime Minister
  • Unifying government
  • Unifying the parliamentary party

The growth of presidential government

• The debate as to whether Britain has Prime Ministerial or Cabinet Government is not new
• It was being hotly debated forty years ago
• However often in the past the cabinet has been weakened and unable to stand up to strong Prime Ministers
• The thesis of a presidential premiership in UK government has grown in recent years and is rarely challenged
• When it is challenged it is because the Prime Minister now has to operate in a more crowded political environment with more political actors

Presidential or constrained?

• The thesis of a presidential premiership rests on the Prime Minister becoming more detached from Cabinet, party and Parliament
• Also them operating as if the office is elected directly by the people
• The PM acts as the embodiment of the national will and intervenes within government to ensure a particular outcome is achieved
• This was particularly marked under Tony Blair
• Though Gordon Brown sought to distinguish his style of prime ministerial leadership from that of Tony Blair, decision making remained heavily concentrated in 10 Downing Street
• However, the thesis does not go unchallenged
• The Prime Minister is dominant within British Government, but not all-powerful, and the territory within which he is powerful is becoming smaller
• Prime Ministers are increasingly  constrained both within and outside government