Quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
In the politics of the United Kingdom, the Cabinet is a formal body composed of the most senior government government ministers chosen by the Prime Minister. Most members are heads of government departments with the title "Secretary of State". Formal members of the cabinet are drawn exclusively from either house of Parliament.
Two key constitutional conventions regarding the accountability of the cabinet to Parliament exist, collective cabinet responsibility and individual ministerial responsibility. These are derived from the fact the members of the cabinet are members of Parliament, and therefore accountable to it, because Parliament is sovereign. Cabinet collective responsibility means that members of the cabinet make decisions collectively, and are therefore responsible for the consequences of these decisions collectively. Therefore, when a vote of no confidence is passed in Parliament, every minister and government official drawn from Parliament automatically resigns their role in the executive; the entire executive is dismissed. So, logically, cabinet ministers who disagree with major decisions are expected to resign, as, to take a recent example, Robin Cook did over the decision to attack Iraq in 2003.
Recent custom has been that the composition of the Cabinet has been made up almost entirely of members of the House of Commons. Two offices — that of Lord Chancellor and Leader of the House of Lords — have always been filled by members of the Lords, but apart from these it is now rare for a peer to sit in the Cabinet. The only current exception is the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, Lord Falconer of Thoroton.
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Ah yes, sorry forgive me, formally they must be from one of the Houses, but the P.M. 'advises' on apointments to the HoL (he has de facto control of appointment), so if he wanted a particular person in the cabinet all he would have to do is make them a peer as a mere formality.
Been a while since I studied constitutional law, so I'm a bit rusty, you tend to remember the defacto positions rather than the technical rules, as these are very often of little consequence in reality. (e.g. the queen would not withhold consent from a statute except in the gravest of constitutional crises).
However I was right in my other assertion regarding the cabinet's composition:
"The Cabinet has no formal legal authority over government departments. The very existance of the Cabinet is a matter of consitutional convention, rather than law: thus it may be thought by some to be unwise, but it would not be not unlawful, for the Cabinet to disappear altogether"
Professor Adam Tomkins, Public Law, 1st Edition, 2003, p. 73
Once again, apologies for my error.