Questions

1. What are the main roles of central government?
2. Outline the organisation of central government.
3. What are the Prime Minister’s powers and what is the role of the Cabinet?
4. What is an arm’s length body?
5. What is the accountability issue with arm’s length bodies?
6. What is the royal prerogative? Give three examples of prerogative executive powers.
7. How can a statute affect a prerogative power?
8. What was the significance of the GCHQ case?
9. Explain (a) individual ministerial responsibility and (b) collective responsibility.
10. What is the Haldane convention?

Answers

1. Government carries out administration, formulating and implementing policy, and implementing laws. It introduces laws into parliament but needs parliamentary support and approval to turn its policies into law.
2. Government is carried out in the name of the Crown. At its heart are the Prime Minister and Cabinet whose membership includes senior ministers who head government departments and are supported by junior ministers and the civil service.
3. The Prime Minister is responsible for the organisation of government, has the power of patronage, manages Cabinet, has a role as national leader, oversees the civil service, and is ultimately responsible for the UK’s national security. The Cabinet debates and makes collective decisions on policy and strategy, government business, its legislative programme, public expenditure, and national affairs. The Cabinet’s decisions are binding on the government.
4. They are part of central government but are separate public bodies, run by civil servants.
5. They are subject to less ministerial control therefore weaker accountability, though some ALBs can be accountable directly to parliament.
6. Prerogative power refers to the remaining rights and powers of the Crown which they can exercise without Parliament’s approval, or often without reference to Parliament. Examples include: making treaties, recognising foreign governments, appointing diplomats, declaring war, deployment of armed forces abroad, command of the armed forces, defence of the realm, maintaining the Queen’s peace, the Prime Minister’s powers of appointment, recommending honours, issuing passports.
7. A statute can abolish, change, or limit a prerogative power by express words. Where a statute and prerogative power cover the same subject matter, and the statute has not expressly abolished the prerogative, the statute takes priority and the prerogative is suspended.
8. It allowed the courts to review how a minister had exercised a prerogative power though it depends on the prerogative power being exercised; high policy matters, particularly international affairs, are ‘non-justiciable’.
9. (a) Under individual ministerial responsibility, ministers are constitutionally responsible to Parliament for carrying out their functions and exercising their powers. They have a duty to Parliament to account, and be held to account, for the policies and actions of their departments and agencies; (b) collective responsibility requires all ministers to vote with the government and support government policy in parliament and in public, and they are bound by Cabinet decisions, thus maintaining unity. Ministers should not disclose what has been discussed in Cabinet. If the government loses the confidence of the House of Commons, the entire government must resign.
10. Civil servants are accountable to ministers and ministers are accountable to Parliament.