Lecture notes
06. Institutions 3 - The Cabinet Government Departments and the Civil Service
- Module
- Public Law
- Institution
- Kings College London (KCL)
06. Institutions 3 - The Cabinet Government Departments and the Civil Service
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BEK Chapter 13: The Cabinet, Government Departments and the Civil ServiceParliament = House of Commons and House of Lords legislative Since members of cabinet
Government = all the ministries, including civil servants executive are from HC no
Cabinet = heads of departments, i.e. ministers, secretaries executive separation of powers?
THE PRIME MINISTER
APPOINTMENT OF PM
3 requirements (rules for appointment)
o PM must be member of Parliament
o PM must be a member of the House of Commons
PM must be accountable to the elected house
Precedent = 1963 when Queen chose which PM to succeed Macmillian
Queen appointed Hughes, who at that time was in HL
He had to renounce his seat in HL in order to be
o PM must be the leader of the party with the largest number of seats in HC
Scottish First Minister
o Scotland Act 1998, s46
o In order to avoid any embarrassment for the monarch, Westminster decided that
after each election for the Scottish Parliament, it should be for the parliament to
resolve who the First Minster should be, and then this be communicated the Queen
Able to elect party, but unable to vote for party leader
o Restricted choice to directly elect who the main power holder in the system is going
to be
Does PM have to be a MP? Yes
o What happens if he doesn’t get elected in its constituency?
o There can be a situation where the party gets elected (and have a majority in
parliament), but the leader does not get elected in his own constituency but rare,
since majority would already vote for that party
o PM has to be in House of Commons a way for citizens to influence who to be PM
is to not elect that person in that constituency, but quite hard because they would
still like the party to form government, so they must vote for its party members (and
the PM elect is the local MP for that constituency)
How did two of the most popular PMs in this country (Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair)
exit their role?
o Both lost the support of their party forced to resign
o British people had no choice they were not asked whether either of them should
remain in power of not
o Reinforces the point that leader of party is a party decision, not people’s choice
LEGAL STATUS OF PM
Office for PM has legal authority, which is grounded in the Royal Prerogative
PM is appointed under the authority of the Royal Prerogative
PM’s legal powers
o Created by statutes to a limited extent
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
o CONTROVERSIAL!!
o Create powers for the police and security service to intercept communication
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