Contents:
Secretary of State for the Home Department.
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. Secretary of State for Defence. Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Secretary of State for Education. Secretary of State for Transport. Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Secretary of State for Scotland. Secretary of State for Wales. Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Minister without Portfolio Unpaid.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury Chief Whip. Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth. Minister of State for Immigration.
Parliamentary Secretary Minister for Implementation. Parliamentary Secretary Minister for the Constitution. Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Minister of State for Security and Economic Crime.
Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service. Minister of State for Countering Extremism.
The senior positions within the Cabinet are usually appointed by the Prime Minister within hours of an election victory. These positions are the ones most immediately made known after the result of a general election is known. There has never been a set number for posts within the Cabinet. The Prime Minister can amalgamate government departments and join together Cabinet positions and he can also create new ones thus requiring a new Cabinet post.
The most common figure for a Cabinet is The current Labour Cabinet numbers Unlike the American version, heads of government departments are not usually experts in their fields. The current Cabinet members who buck this trend are Gordon Brown who is considered to be highly skilled in economic matters and Estelle Morris, who as Minister for Education, has a teaching background.
The members of a cabinet head the principal government departments, or ministries, such as Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs, and the Exchequer treasury. Other ministers may serve without portfolio or hold sinecure offices and are included in the cabinet on account of the value of their counsel or debating skills. The cabinet does much of its work through committees headed by individual ministers, and its overall functioning is coordinated by the Secretariat, which consists of career civil servants. Despite the need for consensus and collective action within a cabinet, ultimate decision-making power rests in the prime minister as the leader of his party.
Various other member countries of the Commonwealth , notably India , Canada , Australia , and New Zealand , maintain cabinet systems of government that are closely related to that developed in Great Britain.
There are limits to the power of people who serve in a Cabinet. Whips House of Commons. The serious problems with trains lead to the resignation of Stephen Byers, Minister of Transport, in to be replaced by Alastair Darling. Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Scotland. Secretary of State for Defence.
In continental Europe the cabinet, or council of ministers, similarly became an intrinsic part of parliamentary systems of government, though with some differences from the British system. Modern cabinets first appeared in Europe during the 19th century with the gradual spread of constitutional government. This was largely due to the creation of elected parliaments whose approval was needed for budgetary matters and legislative acts.
Ministers now came to share with the king responsibility for the processes of government, and it became their task to defend policy proposals in parliament. The power to choose these ministers gradually shifted from the king to elected prime ministers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Traditionally in many European countries, notably Italy and France , several parties competed for power and no one party proved able to command stable majorities in the parliament. Under these conditions, only coalition cabinets commanding the support of several minority parties could muster legislative majorities and hence form a government.
The multiparty systems in France and Italy gave rise to unstable and disunited coalitions that rarely stayed in power for long, however. To remedy this, when France established the Fifth Republic under Charles de Gaulle , it retained the parliamentary system but reinforced the power of the president, who is directly elected and appoints the premier prime minister and his cabinet.
This reformed system is an example of the search for a form of executive power that can overcome the weaknesses often displayed by cabinets that are dependent on parliamentary approval. After World War II , West Germany found a different solution to the problem of frequent cabinet crises provoked by adverse parliamentary votes. A provision in the German Basic Law, or constitution, mandates that the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, can force a federal chancellor prime minister from office by a vote of no confidence only if at the same time it elects a successor by an absolute majority.
It is composed of the heads of executive departments chosen by the president with the consent of the Senate, but the members do not hold seats in Congress, and their tenure , like that of the president himself, does not depend on favourable votes on administration measures in the national legislature. Cabinet meetings are not required under the U. Constitution, which in fact makes no mention of such a body.
The existence of the cabinet and its operations are matters of custom rather than of law, and the cabinet as a collective body has no legal existence or power. The first American president, George Washington, began the custom of consulting regularly with his department heads as a group.
The term cabinet was first used for the heads of the State, Treasury, and War departments by James Madison in Gradually, as administrative duties increased and different problems arose, new executive departments were created by Congress; by the early 21st century the U. For list of U. He is virtually free to use it or not to use it as he pleases. Presidents have thus varied greatly in their use of the cabinet. Ordinarily, all members of a cabinet are of the same political party.
Cabinet appointments are for the duration of the administration, but the president may dismiss any member at his own pleasure, without approval of the Senate. We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles. You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind.