United Kingdom

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The Cabinet

The Cabinet developed during the 18th century out of informal meetings of key government ministers during the reigns of the Hanoverian monarchs, who took relatively little interest in politics. During the 19th century this committee of key ministers evolved into an effective body that wielded the monarch’s executive power.

The Cabinet has about 20 members, or ministers, all of whom must be members of Parliament (MPs). Members of the Cabinet are leaders of the majority party in the House of Commons or, more rarely, members of the House of Lords. Cabinet ministers who head a particular government department, such as the Ministry of Defense, are known as secretaries of state. The prime minister serves as the first lord of the treasury and as minister for the civil service. In addition to the various secretaries of state, the Cabinet includes nondepartmental ministers who hold traditional offices—such as the lord president of the council, the paymaster general, and the lord privy seal—and ministers without portfolio, who do not have specific responsibilities but are assigned to specific tasks as needed. The lord chancellor holds a unique position. The lord chancellor’s executive duties as a Cabinet member include being responsible for legal affairs in the United Kingdom, but he or she is also head of the judiciary, which is a separate part of the British government. The prime minister has the power to move members of the Cabinet from post to post, or to drop individuals from the Cabinet entirely. Former Cabinet ministers may retain their positions as members of Parliament.

Two key doctrines of Cabinet government are collective responsibility and ministerial responsibility. Collective responsibility means that the Cabinet acts unanimously, even when Cabinet ministers do not all agree upon a subject. If an important decision is unacceptable to a particular Cabinet member, it is expected that he or she will resign to signify dissent. Ministerial responsibility means that ministers are responsible for the work of their departments and answer to Parliament for the activities of their departments. The policy of departmental ministers must be consistent with that of the government as a whole. The ministers bear the responsibility for any failure of their department in terms of administration or policy.

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The Privy Council

The Privy Council is a large, and generally ceremonial, body of more than 450 members that developed out of the royal council that existed in the Middle Ages. By the 18th century the Privy Council had taken over all the powers of the royal council. The Privy Council comprises all current and former Cabinet members, as well as important public figures in Britain and the Commonwealth. The council advises the monarch and arranges for the formal handling of documents. It has a large number of committees, each with a specific task, such as dealing with outlying islands, universities, or legal matters. The most important committee is the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which is the highest court of appeal for certain nations in the Commonwealth, some church-related appeals, and for disciplinary committees of some professions.

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The Legislature: Parliament

Parliament comprises three parts: the crown, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. Over the course of centuries, the seat of power has passed from the crown to the Lords to its final resting place in the House of Commons. Parliament originated in the great councils called by the crown during the Middle Ages. Through these meetings, medieval monarchs sought the advice of their subjects, exchanged information about the realm, and gathered petitions. In other words, Parliament originated with the royal wish to gain the approval and sanction of the realm for acts of state. Later, Parliament served to supplement royal revenues by making grants of taxation—that is, by granting the monarch’s request for extra subsidies to pay for wars. The crown invited all great nobles and church leaders to attend these councils. By the end of the 13th century representatives from the counties, called knights of the shire, and representatives of the towns, called burgesses, were also being summoned to attend regularly. The knights and the burgesses eventually came to sit separately from the nobles and church leaders, in what eventually became the House of Commons. The nobles and church leaders sat in what came to be called the House of Lords.

By the end of the Middle Ages Parliament had taken on a form that would be recognized today. It legislated and approved taxes and passed laws. Long, complicated struggles between the monarch and the two houses of Parliament resulted in the government gaining power, while the crown lost power. In the 20th century the House of Commons successfully struggled to curtail the power of the House of Lords. Today the House of Lords can only delay legislation. For the past 280 years the monarch’s royal assent to legislation has been given automatically. (For more information on the history of Parliament, see Parliament, British.)

Parliament is elected roughly every five years and is dissolved by the crown on the advice of the prime minister, who then calls a general election. Parliamentary sessions are held each year and begin in October or November. Parliament meets at the Houses of Parliament in London, officially called the New Palace of Westminster. The Parliament of the United Kingdom legislates for the entire nation and includes representatives from England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

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The House of Lords

The House of Lords today is more a place of discussion and debate than one of power, and it normally passes legislation already approved by the House of Commons. Its members are not elected. The House of Lords is made up of the lords temporal, the lords spiritual, and the law lords.

The lords temporal are either hereditary peers or life peers. The House of Lords long consisted primarily of hereditary peers, but the House of Lords Act passed by Parliament in 1999 abolished peers who inherit their position, with the exception of 90 interim members who will hold their power until the next stage of reform. These 90 members were chosen by committee in 2001. Today, the majority of members of the House of Lords—about 600—are life peers. Life peers are appointed by the monarch for the duration of the person’s lifetime. These appointments are usually made in recognition of outstanding careers or contributions to society. Famous people who have been made peers are former British prime ministers Winston Churchill and Harold Wilson. The lords spiritual include the archbishops of Canterbury and York; the bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester; and the 21 next most senior bishops. The law lords, or lords of appeal, assist in the judicial functions of the House of Lords.

The House of Lords has the power to introduce bills, although bills dealing with financial matters can only originate in the House of Commons. The Lords can also offer amendments to bills passed by the House of Commons, and Commons is obligated to consider these amendments before passing a bill into law. The Lords have the right to delay legislation, and may delay bills for up to about a year. Financial bills, however, may only be delayed for a month, and they become law in 30 days whether or not the House of Lords approves of them. The terms of the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 forbid the Lords from disapproving nonfinancial bills if the House of Commons has passed them in two successive sessions. The only exception is a bill to lengthen the life of a Parliament past five years, which requires the assent of both chambers.

These powers of the House of Lords are limited because most Britons believe that in a modern democracy a nonelected house should only act as a forum for opinion, one that is comparatively free from party politics and pressures. Although this house has relatively little power, many Britons would like to either abolish it completely or replace it with some form of elected second chamber.

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The House of Commons and Legislation

The House of Commons is the source of real political power in the United Kingdom. Its members are democratically elected by universal suffrage of citizens over the age of 18. Certain groups that are denied the right to vote, however, include members of the House of Lords, some detained mental health patients, sentenced prisoners, and those convicted of corrupt or illegal election practices in the previous five years. In addition, certain persons are excluded from standing for election to the House of Commons. They include peers; clergy from the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Church of Ireland, or the Roman Catholic Church; people sentenced to more than a year in prison; and those with unpaid bankruptcy bills.

Members of the House of Commons are elected from geographical constituencies determined by population, and each MP generally represents a constituency of 60,000 to 70,000 people. Four permanent boundary commissions exist, one each for England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Their purpose is to keep the constituencies equal and the boundaries fair. The commissions review the constituencies every 8 to 12 years and recommend changes based on population shifts. Based on a review conducted in 1995, the elections of 1997 and 2001 were held for 659 constituencies in the United Kingdom: 529 in England, 72 in Scotland, 40 in Wales, and 18 in Northern Ireland. A subsequent review by the Boundary Commission for Scotland reduced the number of constituencies there to 59. Accordingly, the number of seats in the House of Commons was reduced to 646 as of the 2005 general elections.

British citizens living abroad may vote in British elections for up to 20 years after they have left Britain. Those temporarily living overseas as members of the military or other state service may vote in their home constituencies. In 1992 a record high of 78 percent of the electorate voted in the general election. In 1997 a reported 71 percent of the electorate voted. Voter turnout dropped to 59 percent in 2001 and then rose slightly in 2005 to 61 percent.

A session of Parliament lasts for five years unless the prime minister dissolves Parliament, which can happen for a number of reasons. Although the monarch officially dissolves Parliament, this happens only after the prime minister calls for it. The prime minister can dissolve Parliament over a major issue that he or she believes should be submitted to the voters. The prime minister also might dissolve Parliament if the tide of public opinion seems to be flowing strongly on the side of the party in office. Holding a general election when public opinion is highly supportive of the party in power enables that party to possibly gain more seats in the House of Commons, and so extend their stay in power with a stronger majority.

Parliament can also be dissolved if the government is defeated on an important piece of legislation. When a Parliamentary majority votes against the legislation it is treated as a vote of no confidence for the prime minister and his government. A specific vote by that name may be taken to indicate that the majority of MPs are against the legislation. This tradition is so deep that actual votes of no confidence are rarely taken. The government of Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan was dissolved in 1979 when a vote of no confidence was taken after union workers went on strike in reaction to the government’s attempt to limit wage increases. There had been no such vote of no confidence in Britain since 1924. When the prime minister dissolves Parliament, a general election is held for all the seats in the House of Commons.

The members of the majority party sit on one side of the house, directly facing the minority party members. Each side has a so-called front bench where its most important political leaders sit. The prime minister and his or her Cabinet colleagues sit in the majority party front bench. The opposition party front bench is occupied by what is called the Shadow Cabinet, which consists of the opposition party leader and those who would receive Cabinet posts if the opposition leader became prime minister. Debates in the House of Commons can be quite lively. C-SPAN television in America often broadcasts the raucous sessions when the prime minister answers questions from the house.

Most legislation is initiated by the Cabinet in the form of public bills, or legislation pertaining to the general law, which govern the population as a whole. Individual members of Parliament may introduce private bills to address specific or local concerns, such as the railways or local authorities. Ministers of departments initiate most of the public bills relating to their department; these kinds of public bills are called government bills. When a bill is passed into law, it then receives the royal assent. Much of the Cabinet’s work on legislation is accomplished in specialized committees, which debate and publish reports that help shape legislation.

Bills may be introduced into either the House of Commons or the House of Lords, except for financial bills, which may be introduced only in the House of Commons. Each bill is given three separate readings in each house. In the first reading, the bill is presented without debate. After the bill is read a second time, the house debates the bill’s general principles. The bill then goes to a committee for thorough study, discussion, and amendment. At the third reading, the bill is presented to the house in its final form and a vote is taken.

If the bill is passed on the third reading, it is sent to the other house, where it goes through the same procedure. If passed by the second house, the bill is sent to the monarch for the ceremonial formality of royal assent before becoming law. If amended by either house, the amendments must be resolved by both houses before the bill is sent to the monarch. The House of Lords can delay legislation for no more than one year (30 days for financial bills). A bill originating in the House of Lords can be tabled and not considered in the Commons, but a bill originating in the Commons will become law, even without the approval of the House of Lords, if it passes Commons again in the following year’s session.