The Prime Minister, Cabinet and CMR Flashcards
The Central Executive comprises…
…the Prime Minister (PM) and the Cabinet
The Prime Minister is the…
…political head of the UK government.
It is said that ‘the King appoints the Prime Minister’, but this is a ceremonial formality.
The King does not, in practice, have any power to choose the PM.
Who become Prime Minister?
The conventional position is that the leader of the political party, which is ‘able to command the confidence of the House of Commons’, will become PM.
In most situations, this will be the leader of the political party which has a majority of seats in the House of Commons.
What powers does the Prime Minister possess?
- Advising the King to appoint or remove ministers – this advice is, by convention, always followed.
- Determining the size and composition of the Cabinet
- Determining and coordinating the general policy direction of the government
- Determining the subject matter and composition of Cabinet committees
- Determining when the Cabinet meets
- Determining the agenda for Cabinet discussion
The PM is also the Minister for the Civil Service, and First Lord of the Treasury.
What is t he Cabinet Office? Purpose?
The Cabinet Office is a department of the UK Government.
Its purpose is to support the PM and the Cabinet and ensure that the Civil Service (the politically neutral central government administration) helps the government attain its policy goals.
Wrist is the responsibility of the Cabinet Office?
- Political and constitutional reform
- The Civil Service
- Supporting the National Security Council and Joint Intelligence Organisation
- The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority
What is the Privy Council?
The word “privy” means secret.
the ‘privy counsellors’ – numbering over 700 – are individuals who hold, or have held, high political or judicial office.
However, the majority play no part in the Privy Council’s day-to-day business, which is mostly conducted by government ministers.
The Privy Council ‘advises’ the monarch on the exercise of the royal prerogative. It meets to secure the monarch’s formal approval of documents which have already been approved by the Cabinet, or by government departments.
Proceedings of the Privy Council are secret. Its members (which include each member of the Cabinet) swear…
…an oath of allegiance, which includes a promise to “keep secret all matters revealed or treated of in the privy council”.
Give an example when the Privy Council was at work.
In September 2019, following a meeting of the Privy Council at the Balmoral Estate, the late Queen agreed to the Prime Minister’s request to exercise her royal prerogative to ‘prorogue’ Parliament.
Parliament’s consent was not required.
The Supreme Court subsequently ruled the prorogation was unlawful (Miller v The Prime Minister (No2) [2019] UKSC 41.
What is the Cabinet?
the body of senior ministers at the heart of the central executive. It is chaired by the Prime Minister and meets weekly, while Parliament is sitting.
It is comprised of the senior ministers – ‘Secretaries of State’ – in each government department, the Lord Chancellor and a few other senior ministers, such as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Leader of the House of Commons.
It exists as a matter of convention. Its powers are not found in legislation. Cabinet Ministers are also Privy Counsellors and bound by an oath of secrecy.
“Cabinet is the ultimate decision-making body of government. The purpose of Cabinet and its committees is to provide a framework for ministers to consider and make collective decisions on policy issues.”
What are Cabinet committees?
To relieve the pressure on decision-making, a number of cabinet committees exist to deal with specific areas of government administration, such as national security.
The number, terms of reference and subject matter of these committees is within the Prime Minister’s control. Cabinet committee decisions have the same status as decisions of the full Cabinet.
What is the ‘COBRA’ committee?
COBR stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room and it provides the mechanism for agreeing government response to major emergencies such as a terrorist attack or pandemic.
Meetings of COBR are Cabinet committee meetings, but there is no fixed membership so that the government department with responsibility for the issue under consideration can take the lead.
What is CMR?
Collective ministerial responsibility
The decisions made by Cabinet and its committees are subject to the ‘doctrine’ or convention of collective ministerial responsibility – “CMR”.
This means that all government ministers are bound by the collective decisions of Cabinet.
There are seen to be three component parts of this convention:
· Confidentiality
· Unanimity
· Confidence
Politicians are CUCk
Under the CMR convention there is a duty on ministers not to…
…disclose confidential matters discussed in Cabinet. This information extends to Cabinet papers and also to ministerial memoirs, which have to be approved for publication.
The unanimity component of CMR requires that, once a decision or agreement has been reached…
…all ministers should publicly agree with government policy. If they do not feel able to do this, they should resign.
The principle behind this is that Cabinet ministers should have had the right to contribute to the confidential debate leading up to the decision. If they lose the argument in Cabinet, they are obliged to sign up to the majority view in a ‘united front’ or to leave the government.
