word image
Term paper

Cabinet Governme­nt in the British constitu­tional system

1.991 Words / ~7 pages sternsternsternsternstern Author Sara B. in Apr. 2012
<
>
Download
Genre/category

Term paper
History

University, School

ELTE Budapest

Grade, Teacher, Year

2011

Author / Copyright
Sara B. ©
Metadata
Price 3.20
Format: pdf
Size: 0.44 Mb
Without copy protection
Rating
sternsternsternsternstern
ID# 17241







Cabinet Government

“The Cabinet is the core of the British constitutional system. It is the supreme directing authority. It integrates what would otherwise be a heterogeneous collection of authorities exercising a vast variety of functions. It provides unity to the British system of government.” [1]

Jennings clearly expresses with his words how dominant and interesting the Cabinet’s role is in the British constitution. There is a term which is often used when it comes to constitution types ‛parliamentary executive’ and it reveals the inseparable connection between the Parliament and the Cabinet. The other aspect that should be considered is the connection between the ministers and their leader, the Prime Minister.

In the early Twentieth Century, many PMs were given the description ‛Primus inter pares’ which points out the dominating role of the Prime Ministers in regard to the Cabinet. In order to understand, why the executive and the legislature branches are so close related in the United Kingdom’s parliamentary system, we need to take a tour through the Cabinet system, learn how it came into existence, how it has evolved over the centuries, and analyse its peculiarities with the help of professional political writers.

A Cabinet is a body of government officials whose role is to represent the executive power of the state, take the most important decisions and provide co-ordination in government policies. It is also known as the Executive Council, or Executive Committee. There are various types of Cabinet systems used in different countries in the world.

The Westminster system is built up after the British politics, and is used by countries like Canada, Australia and Pakistan. The role of the Cabinet is determining in point of the policy of the government and therefore the members must publicly support it. “A Cabinet which represented all shades of opinion would be a Ministry which could not act at all.

No one really supposes that a Government could in ordinary circumstances be formed in which two opposite parties balanced one another.” [2]

In contrast to Westminster, the United States Cabinet does not determine: it actually carries out policy; it rather serves the President and does not have as much influence on the legislative branch as in the Westminster Cabinet. Although there are still other countries using cabinets, these should be interpreted as special groups of assistants in serve of a minister.

The expression ‛Cabinet council’ itself was first used by Francis Bacon in his Essays (1601) : “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.” [3]

Download Cabinet Governme­nt in the British constitu­tional system
• Click on download for the complete and text
• This is a sharing plattform for papers
Upload your paper and receive this one for free
• Or you can buy simply this text

Bacon’s phrase, the ‛cabinet council’, or ‛cabinet counsel’ actually referred to an advice given in private, in a ‛cabinet’ and was still an informal form of the Cabinet that we know.
However, the Crown has also needed advice during the Norman monarchs from a royal court which can be considered as an early advisory council in these times.

In 1625 Charles I began the first formal ‛Cabinet council’ as his ‛Privy Council’ which was followed by several attempts to a successful committee. “The fate of most councils or committees is to grow too large to be effective and to be replaced by an executive or inner caucus, like a series of Russian dolls.” [4] Due to the low reputation of the system it was often replaced and restored, and the process has repeated itself through the history.

King George I (1714-1727) and his heir King George II (1727-1760), both of them descended from Hanover and were therefore in heavy need of a native committee. Since their reign the Cabinet has become an even more indispensable executive power in the British politics.

After the approach of the formal Cabinets its importance has depended on the dominance of the actual kings and prime ministers of the kingdom. The term Kitchen Cabinet for example refers to a group of allies and friends; trusted, but unofficial advisors, mostly people who stand close to the King or the Prime Minister and was therefore mentioned about rulers who often did not lean on the Cabinets advices and wanted to rather enjoy the support of their allies, or, in some cases even their relatives.
The very first Prime Minister in the British history, Sir Robert Walpole (1730-1743) held regular meetings with the Cabinet, – still not in its modern form – had an unquestionable influence on its decisions and was known about his bribe payments.

These dispositions have therefore made it possible to the middle-class to represent itself in the Cabinet.

Prime Minister William Pitt gave under his regime (1783-1801) the right to the PM to make Cabinet members resign from their posts. The cabinet has been made collective responsible, since all the decisions that have been made were together discussed by the ministers.

The modern Cabinet system can be originated to David Lloyd George as he has set up the “Cabinet Office and Secretariat, committee structures, unpublished Minutes, and a clearer relationship with departmental Cabinet Ministers. (The formal procedure, practice and proceedings of the Cabinet remain largely unpublished, if not secret.)” [6]

Since the First and the Second World War required a much more organized system that could ensure faster processes in the decision-making of the Cabinet, Lloyd’s system was vitally important in the point of the war effort. The crises of the First World War came to such a pass that in 1916 Lloyd (Secretary of State for War in that time) urged the establishment of a War Cabinet, which has served the Kingdom in many crucial times during the events of both world wars. “This centralisation inevitably enhanced the power of the Prime Minister, who moved from being the primus inter pares of the Asquith Cabinets of 1906 onwards, with a glittering set of huge individual talents leading powerful departments, to the dominating figures of David Lloyd George, Stanley Baldwin and Winston Churchill.” [7]

It is he who is primarily concerned with the formation of a Cabinet, with the subjects which the Cabinet discusses, with the relations between the King and the Cabinet and between the Cabinet and Parliament, and with the co-ordination of the machinery of government subject to the control of the Cabinet.” [8]

The Cabinet counts about 21- 24 members, the current number is 23. They meet on a weekly basis, usually on Thursday. (The day of the meeting has been changed several times by the PM.) . The Cabinet is a committee of Her Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council and the ministers are simultaneously Privy Counsellors of the Queen.

The members are almost entirely invited from the House of Commons, but can be occasionally also selected from outside the Parliament.

Dicey distinguishes a ‛parliamentary executive’ and a ‛non-parliamentary executive’ in his work, where the ‛non-parliamentary executive’ is not appointed by the Parliament, and therefore there is no close relation to be found between the legislature and the executive branch.

He writes that with the right of the Prime Minister to appoint or dismiss the ministers “the possession of this power is the source of at least half the authority.” [10] This clearly points out that Montesquieu’s theory on the separation of powers actually still has not really come true in the United Kingdom’s constitution.The difference again between a parliamentary and a non-parliamentary executive, though it covers, does not correspond with a distinction, strongly insisted on by Bagehot, between Cabinet Government and Presidential Government.

is one form, and by far the most usual form, of a parliamentary executive, and the Presidential Government of America, which Bagehot had in his mind, is one form, though certainly riot the only form, of a non-parliamentary executive. “ [11]

Traditionally the term ‛Cabinet government’ was mentioned about the British Constitution, where the major decisions were made by the ministers, with the assistance of the Prime Minister. “The Cabinet are responsible to Parliament as a body, for the general conduct of affairs.” [12] Dicey refers to the Cabinet collective responsibility, which gave great power in the PM’s hands.

For all the affairs caused by the ministers, they are not individually, but as a whole responsible, for which they all can be made resign their posts by the Prime Minister. It can be clearly seen how subordinate the Cabinet is to the PM, as a ‛parliamentary executive’. There were several Prime Ministers through the history who have acted in a “presidential manner”, for example Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair “as he was believed to have refrained from using the Cabinet as a collective decision-making body.” [13]

It is a matter of curious speculation, whether the English Cabinet may not at this moment be undergoing a gradual and, as yet, scarcely noticed change of character, under which it may be transformed from a parliamentary into a non-parliamentary executive.” [14]

We could say that Dicey has foretold the future of the British Cabinet, as since 1945 the whole nature of the government has been changed. I would like to close my essay with the thoughts of W. Ivor Jennings, who tried to keep up with time as he wrote his book: “The British Constitution is changing so rapidly that it is difficult to keep pace with it.” [15]

Bibliography and Sources

A.V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 1885, MacMillan and Co., Eighth Edition, 1915

Number 10, Cabinet accessed Oct 25, 2011,

Wikipedia – Cabinet government accessed Oct 25, 2011,

Wikipedia – Cabinet of the United Kingdom accessed Oct 25, 2011,

Wikipedia – War Cabinet accessed Oct 26, 2011,

Wikipedia – Reform Act accessed Oct 25, 2011,

History Learning, Cabinet and British Politics accessed Oct 25, 2011,

Course Work, Essay, Does Britain have a Prime Ministerial or Cabinet Government? (No name) accessed Oct 25, 2011,

Course Work, Essay, How well equipped is the British cabinet for the role as the strategic policy making body in the UK? (No name) accessed Oct 25, 2011,

Encyclopaedia, Privy Council accessed Oct 25, 2011,




[1]W. Ivor Jennings, Cabinet Government, 1936, Chapter I The British Constitution p.1

[3]Francis Bacon, The Essays, 1601, Of Counsel

[4]Encyclopaedia, Privy Council accessed Oct 25, 2011,

[5] Number 10, Cabinet accessed Oct 25, 2011,

[6]Wikipedia, Cabinet of the United Kingdom accessed Oct 26, 2011,

[7] Wikipedia, Cabinet of the United Kingdom accessed Oct 26, 2011,

[8]W. Ivor Jennings, Cabinet Government, 1936, Chapter I The British Constitution p.1

[9] A.V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 1885, Eighth Edition (1915), Note III Distinction between a parliamentary executive and a non-parliamentary executive, p.480

[10]A.V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 1885, Eighth Edition (1915), Note III Distinction between a parliamentary executive and a non-parliamentary executive, p.481

[12]A.V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 1885, Eighth Edition (1915), Nature of conventions of constitution, p.416

[13]Wikipedia, Cabinet of the United Kingdom accessed Oct 26, 2011,

[14]A.V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 1885, Eighth Edition (1915), Note III Distinction between a parliamentary executive and a non-parliamentary executive, p.483

[15]W. Ivor Jennings, Cabinet Government, 1936, Preface

References & Links

Swap your papers