Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
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In the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister is the head of government, exercising many of the executive functions nominally vested in the Sovereign, who is head of state. According to custom, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet (which he or she heads) are responsible for their actions to Parliament, of which they are always members. The current Prime Minister is The Right Honourable Tony Blair (of the Labour Party), who has been in office since 1997.
As the title suggests, the Prime Minister is the monarch's principal advisor. Historically, the monarch's chief minister (if, as was not always the case, any one person could be singled out as such) might have been any of a number of officials: frequently the First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Privy Seal, or one of the Secretaries of State. With the emergence, in the eighteenth century, of government by a cabinet of these ministers, its head came in time to be called the "Prime Minister" (sometimes also "Premier" or "First Minister"); to this day the Prime Minister always also holds one of the more specific ministerial positions. Sir Robert Walpole is generally regarded as the first Prime Minister in the modern sense.
The Prime Minister is appointed by the Sovereign, who is bound by constitutional convention to choose the individual most likely to command the support of the House of Commons (normally, the leader of the party with a majority in that body). Should the Prime Minister lose the confidence of the House of Commons (indicated, for example, by the passage of a no confidence motion), he or she is obliged by custom either to resign (in which case the Sovereign can try to find another Prime Minister who has the House's confidence) or to request the monarch to call a general election. Since the premiership is in some sense still a de facto position, the office's powers are mainly a matter of custom rather than law, deriving from the incumbent's ability to apoint (through the Sovereign) his or her Cabinet colleagues as well as from certain uses of the royal prerogative exercised on the Prime Minister's advice. Some commentators have pointed out that, in practice, the powers of the office are subject to very few checks, especially in an era when Parliament and the Cabinet are seen as unwilling to challenge dominant Prime Ministers whose attention is increasingly turned not toward Parliament but toward the news media.
History
Historically, the bulk of the power over the Government of the Kingdom was vested in the Sovereign, acting on the advice of bodies such as Parliament and the Privy Council. Over several years, the Cabinet evolved from the Privy Council, as the monarch began the practice of consulting a few confidential advisors rather than the Council at large. These bodies, however, bore little resemblance to modern Cabinets; they were often not led by a single figure such as a Prime Minister, they often failed to act in unison, and they were appointed and dismissed entirely at the whim of the monarch, with little parliamentary control.
After the Glorious Revolution (1688), however, Parliament's power began to steadily grow at the expense of that of the monarch. It was under William III and his successor, Anne, that the Cabinet began to take its modern shape. Individuals such as Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin and Robert Harley were recognised as the leaders of their respective ministries, but they cannot be considered Prime Ministers in the modern sense, given that they exercised little control over their colleagues. Similarly, the Cabinets of Anne's successor, George I, were led by individuals such as Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope, and Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland, but these individuals were not truly Prime Ministers.
Lord Stanhope and Lord Sunderland, who were joint leaders of their Cabinet, were succeeded in 1721 by Sir Robert Walpole, who held the influential office of First Lord of the Treasury. Previous holders of the post had often been important figures in government, but not to such a degree as Walpole. His influence grew even stronger because the King, George I, was not active in English politics, preferring to concentrate on his native Hanover. Walpole is generally regarded as the first Prime Minister, not just because of his influence in Government, but because he could force his colleagues in the Cabinet to act in a harmonious and unified fashion, instead of intriguing against each other for more power. Walpole's office, First Lord of the Treasury, became strongly associated with the leadership of the Government; it became the position which the Prime Minister almost always held.
Even though George I was largely uninterested in British politics and left much of his power to Sir Robert Walpole, the Sovereign continued to maintain much personal control over the choice of Ministers. When George I died in 1727, for instance, the new King, George II, was prepared to dismiss Walpole, but failed to adopt such a course of action only due to the advice of his wife, Queen Augusta. Though the power of the Sovereign remained great, it was diminished over the course of George II's reign, as that of the Prime Minister slowly began to grow. Indeed, during the last years of George II's life, policy was chiefly directed by Ministers such as William Pitt the Elder.
The reign of George III, which began in 1760 upon the death of George II, is particularly notable for developments in the office of Prime Minister. Over the course of his reign, the King was sometimes forced by parliamentary pressure to appoint Prime Ministers and Ministers whom he did not personally favour. Control over the composition of the Cabinet had not, however, been completely lost to the Prime Minister; in some cases, George was able to prevent the appointment of politicians whom he detested (for instance, Charles James Fox). The influence of the monarch nevertheless continued to gradually dwindle; this trend became clearly noticeable during the reign of William IV, the last King to appoint a Prime Minister against the wishes of Parliament. William attempted to impose his personal will in 1834, when he dismissed William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (whose Whig administration he disliked) and replaced him with a Tory, Sir Robert Peel. Peel, however, found it impossible to govern without the support of the Whig House of Commons, and was forced to resign from his position. Since Peel's administration, the Sovereign has had very little discretion in appointing Prime Ministers; no monarch since William IV has attempted to appoint a Prime Minister against the wishes of Parliament.
As the royal influence over ministerial appointments disappeared, the power of the House of Commons began to rise, its political superiority over the House of Lords being established by the Parliament Act 1911. During the early twentieth century, the convention that the Prime Minister should be responsible not to the Lords, but to the Commons, was cemented. The associated convention that the Prime Minister should be a member of the Lower House was developed. The last Prime Minister to lead his whole administration from the Lords was Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, from 1895 to 1902. Mention, however, must be made of the appointment of Alec Douglas-Home, 14th Earl of Home in 1963. Lord Home was the last Prime Minister who was a peer, but, within days of attaining office, he disclaimed his peerage, mindful of the convention that the Prime Minister should sit in the House of Commons. A junior member of his Conservative Party resigned from the House of Commons, allowing Douglas-Home to contest a by-election and procure a seat in the lower House.
The Office
Although in recent years it has never hindered any premier in the exercise of his or her office, the offical status of the Prime Minister remains somewhat ambiguous. A Prime Minister has virtually no statuatory authority in his or her own right; all the actual business of running the country and spending the budget is (in theory) carried out by the holders of more explicitly defined Cabinet offices, who are empowered to do so by various Acts of Parliament. The Prime Minister holds at least one of these more tangible ministerial offices himself—normally First Lord of the Treasury—and indeed receives his or her salary and public accommodation only by virtue of that office.
The title "Prime Minister", however, is not altogether a matter of convention, as in 1905 it was in a sense given offical recognition when the "Prime Minister" was named in the "order of precedence," outranked, among non-royals, only by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and by the Lord Chancellor. Furthermore, the office is not entirely without statutory justification, since it has in fact been explicitly named a number of times in emergency wartime legislation. All sorts of official pronouncements are issued from Downing Street in the name of the "Prime Minister" without further circumlocution.
By convention, the Prime Minister also holds the office of First Lord of the Treasury. The only Prime Ministers who have not also served as First Lord for a signifcant part of their administrations are William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (who was Lord Privy Seal) and Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (who was either Foreign Secretary or Lord Privy Seal). Since Lord Salisbury's retirement in 1902, every Prime Minister has also been First Lord of the Treasury. Some have held yet more offices; for example, Tony Blair is both First Lord and Minister for the Civil Service.
There is also the associated post of Deputy Prime Minister. An officer with such a title need not always exist; rather, the existence of the post is dependent on the form of Cabinet organisation preferred by the Prime Minister and his or her party. The office's title, however, may be considered something of a misnomer; the Deputy Prime Minister does not automatically succeed when a vacancy in the premiership is suddenly created, nor does he or she assume any additional powers when the Prime Minister is outside the country. The position has often been used as an honorific. Under the Blair Government, a separate department called the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was created in 2002.
In the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the position which corresponds with that of Prime Minister is First Minister. (See First Minister of Scotland, First Minister of Wales, and First Minister of Northern Ireland.)
Term
The office of Prime Minister is governed not by codified laws, but by unwritten customs known as constitutional conventions, which have developed over years of British history. These conventions are for the most part founded on the underlying principle that the Prime Minister and his fellow Ministers must maintain the support of the democratically elected component of Parliament, the House of Commons. The Sovereign, as a constitutional monarch, always acts in accordance with such conventions, as do Prime Ministers themselves.
Whenever the office of Prime Minister falls vacant, the Sovereign is responsible for appointing the new incumbent; the appointment is formalised at a ceremony known as Kissing Hands. In accordance with unwritten constitutional conventions, the Sovereign must appoint the individual most likely to maintain the support of the House of Commons: usually, the leader of the party which has a majority in that House. If no party has a majority (an unlikely occurrence given the United Kingdom's First Past the Post electoral system), two or more groups may form a coalition, whose leader is then appointed Prime Minister. The majority party becomes "Her Majesty's Government," and all other parties become "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition." The head of the largest Opposition party becomes the Leader of the Opposition.
The term of a Prime Minister is linked to the term of Members of the House of Commons. Parliament has a maximum term of five years; in practice, however, it is usually "dissolved" sooner by the Sovereign, who acts on the Prime Minister's advice. The Prime Minister normally chooses the moment most advantageous to his or her party for the dissolution. In some circumstances, however, the Prime Minister may be compelled to dissolve Parliament (or, if he or she prefers, to resign) by the House of Commons. The House may attempt to force the dissolution by passing a Motion of No Confidence or by rejecting a Motion of Confidence. The same effect is achieved if the House of Commons rejects the Budget ("withdraws Supply"), or if it rejects some other important component of the Government's agenda. Such defeats for the Government, however, are rare; there have only been three defeats on confidence issues since the nineteenth century: twice in 1924, and once in 1979.
Whatever the reason—the expiry of Parliament's five year term, the choice of the Prime Minister, or a Government defeat in the House of Commons—the dissolution is followed by general elections. If his or her party has lost a majority in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister is compelled to resign (or request a dissolution, but the Sovereign is not compelled to accept such a request). The leader of the party or coalition now in the majority is then appointed Prime Minister by the Sovereign. The custom that requires the Prime Minister to resign immediately after an electoral loss was last broken by Edward Heath after the general election of February 1974, which did not produce an absolute majority for any party. Heath opted not to resign immediately, instead negotiating with a third party (the Liberal Party) to form a coalition. Heath did eventually resign when the negotiations failed.
Lastly, defeats in general elections are not the events which end Prime Ministerial terms. For example, Margaret Thatcher left office because she no longer retained the support of her own party. Prime Ministers are also free to resign for personal reasons (such as health concerns). The last Prime Minister to die in office was Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (in 1865). The last, and only Prime Minister to be assassinated was Spencer Perceval (in 1812).
Powers and restraints
The Prime Minister's chief duty is to "form a Government"—that is to say, to create a Cabinet or Ministry which will sustain the support of the House of Commons—when commissioned by the Sovereign. He or she generally co-ordinates the policies and activities of the Cabinet and the various Government departments, generally acting as the "face" of Her Majesty's Government. The Sovereign exercises much of his or her royal prerogative on the Prime Minister's advice. (For the prerogative of dissolving Parliament, see "Term" above.)
The Prime Minister also has a wide range of appointment powers. In most cases, the actual appointments are made by the Sovereign, but the selection is made by the Prime Minister. Ministers, Privy Counsellors, ambassadors and High Commissioners, senior civil servants, senior military officers, senior judges, Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England, members of important committees and commissions, and several other officials are selected, and in some cases may be removed, by the Prime Minister. Furthermore, peerages, knighthoods, and other honours are bestowed by the Sovereign only on the advice of the Prime Minister. The only important British honours over which the Prime Minister does not have control are Knighthoods of the Garter and Knighthoods of the Thistle, which are within the "personal gift" of the Sovereign.
There exist several limits on the powers of the Prime Minister. Firstly, he or she is (theoretically at least) only a first among equals in the Cabinet. The extent of a Prime Minister's power over the Cabinet may vary. In some cases, the Prime Minister may be a mere figurehead, with actual power being vested in other individuals. Weak or titular Prime Ministers were more common prior to the twentieth century; examples include William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, and Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby. At the opposite extreme, however, Prime Ministers may dominate the Cabinet so much that they become "Semi-Presidents." Examples of dominant Prime Ministers (more common during the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries) include William Ewart Gladstone, David Lloyd George, Neville Chamberlain, Sir Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, and Tony Blair. Some Prime Ministers go from one position to the other: Ramsay MacDonald, for example, was dominant in his Labour governments, but during his National Government his powers diminished so that by his final years in Downing Street he was merely the figurehead of the government. In modern times, Prime Ministers are never merely titular; dominant or somewhat dominant ones are the norm.
The Prime Minister's powers are also limited by the House of Commons, whose support the Government is obliged to maintain. The House of Commons checks the powers of the Prime Minister through committee hearings and through Question Time, a weekly occurrence in which the Prime Minister is obliged to respond to the questions of the Leader of the Opposition and other members of the House. In practice, however, a Government with a strong majority need rarely fear "backbench rebellions." By voting against a Prime Minister from their own party, Members of the House of Commons may force a general election in which they will lose their own seats. Several Members hold ministerial offices, and may fear removal for failing to support the Prime Minister. Party discipline, furthermore, is very strong; a Member of Parliament may be expelled from his or her party for failing to support the Government on important issues. Restraints imposed by the House of Commons grow even weaker when the Government's party enjoys a large majority in that House. In general, the Prime Minister and his or her colleagues may secure the House's support for almost any bill.
The House of Lords is still less restrictive of the Prime Minister's power. Under the Salisbury Convention, the House of Lords normally does not seek to oppose any measure promised by the Government in its election manifesto. When the House of Lords does oppose the Prime Minister, it is generally ineffectual. Peers (members of the House of Lords) are created by the Sovereign on the advice of the Prime Minister; by obtaining the creation of several new peers, the Prime Minister may flood the House of Lords with individuals supportive of his position. Such a tactic was used in 1911 to ensure the passage of the Parliament Act 1911, which, together with the Parliament Act 1949, reduces the House of Lords's powers and establishes the supremacy of the Commons. (In particular, the House of Lords can only delay, but not reject, most bills on which the Commons insist.)
The powers of the office led Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone, a Conservative Minister, to liken the position of Prime Minister to an "elective dictatorship." Ultimately, however, the Prime Minister may be held responsible for the consequences of legislation or of general government policy. Margaret Thatcher's party forced her from power after the introduction of the poll tax; Sir Anthony Eden fell from power following the Suez Crisis; Neville Chamberlain resigned after being criticised for his handling of World War II.
Precedence and privileges
The Prime Minister had no special precedence until the order of precedence first recognized the office in 1905. Throughout the United Kingdom, he outranks all others except the Royal Family, the Lord Chancellor, and senior ecclesiastical functionaries (in England and Wales, the Anglican Archbishops of Canterbury and York; in Scotland, the Lord High Commissioner and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; in Northern Ireland, the Anglican and Roman Catholic Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church).
The Prime Minister draws his or her salary not as Prime Minister, but as First Lord of the Treasury. He or she receives £121,437, in addition to his or her salary as a Member of Parliament (£57,485). Although the Prime Minister is undoubtedly the most powerful figure in British government, his or her compensation is not the highest amongst ministers: that distinction goes to the Lord Chancellor.
The Prime Minister traditionally resides at 10 Downing Street in London, which George II offered to Sir Robert Walpole as a personal gift. Walpole, however, only accepted it as the official home of the First Lord, taking up his residence there in 1735. One may note that the Prime Minister only resides in 10 Downing Street in his or her capacity as First Lord; the few nineteenth century Prime Ministers who were not First Lords were forced to live elsewhere. Though most First Lords have lived in 10 Downing Street, some have preferred to reside in their private residences. Furthermore, some such as Harold Macmillan and John Major have lived in Admiralty House whilst 10 Downing Street was undergoing renovations or repairs.
Adjacent to Downing Street is 11 Downing Street, the home of the Second Lord of the Treasury (who, in modern times, has also filled the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer). After he became Prime Minister in 1997, Tony Blair found 10 Downing Street too meagre for his large family, and he swapped residences with the Chancellor and Second Lord, Gordon Brown. However, the Prime Ministerial offices are still maintained in Number 10.
The Prime Minister, like other Cabinet Ministers, is customarily made a member of the Privy Council; thus, he or she becomes entitled to prefix "The Right Honourable" to his or her name. Membership of the Council is retained for life.
Retirement honours
It is customary for the Sovereign to grant a Prime Minister some honour or dignity when that individual retires from politics. The honour commonly, but not invariably, bestowed on Prime Ministers is membership of the United Kingdom's most senior order of chivalry, the Order of the Garter. The practice of creating retired Prime Ministers Knights of the Garter has been fairly prevalent since the middle-nineteenth century.
It has also been common for Prime Ministers to be granted peerages upon their retirement from the premiership. (The grant of a peerage, which elevates the individual to the House of Lords, may be delayed if the Prime Minister wishes to stay in the House of Commons for some more time.) Formerly, the peerage bestowed was usually an earldom (which was always hereditary). However, since the 1960s, hereditary peerages have generally been eschewed, and life peerages have been preferred. The granting of hereditary peerages was briefly renewed during the 1980s, when former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was created Earl of Stockton, but has since been discontinued.
Of the nineteen Prime Ministers since 1902, eight have been created both peers and Knights of the Garter; three have only been created peers; three have only become Knights of the Garter; and five have not been granted either honour.
Retired Prime Ministers who are still living include:
- The Rt Hon. John Major CH
- The Rt Hon. The Baroness Thatcher LG OM PC
- The Rt Hon. The Lord Callaghan of Cardiff KG PC
- The Rt Hon. Sir Edward Heath KG MBE
List of Prime Ministers
For the complete list of British Prime Ministers, see List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom.
Looking back at the eighteenth century, it is often unclear who should be considered the Prime Minister, with holders of the offices of First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Privy Seal, and Secretary of State all at one time or another acting as the principal minister in various governments. For instance, John Carteret, 2nd Baron Carteret Secretary of State for the Northern Department from 1742 to 1744 and William Pitt the Elder as Secretary of State for the Southern Department from 1756 to 1757 and again from 1757 to 1761 had many of the powers of a Prime Ministers, although other men held the principal office of First Lord of the Treasury. This list follows conventional practice in not listing such figures as Prime Ministers.
There are, however, two exceptions to this generalisation. Firstly, in 1766, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (previously William Pitt the Elder) was asked by the King to form a ministry, but chose to take the office of Lord Privy Seal instead of the position of First Lord. Nevertheless, he is generally considered to have served as Prime Minister, for the King had asked him to form a Government. Similarly, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, was asked to form ministries thrice, though he only served as First Lord for a short part of his second term. Lord Salisbury is also listed as a Prime Minister, though he was not First Lord, again because the Queen had asked him to form the ministry. Such considerations make the earlier part of the list somewhat less authoritative in its determination of who, exactly, was Prime Minister at such times.
See also
References
- 10 Downing Street. (2004). Official Website.
- Farnborough, Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron. (1896). Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George the Third, 11th ed. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
- Parliament of the United Kingdom. (2004). Official Website.