The UK Cabinet

The UK Cabinet Members

The UK Cabinet is made up of around 20 Members of Parliament, both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, which are appointed and dismissed by the Prime Minister. There are four main areas that the Prime Minister will use to decide on these positions. There are:

1. Expertise and ability - Candidates with expertise in the specific field, are usually front-runners for Cabinet positions; however, candidates without expertise who can communicate and organise effectively are sometimes chosen.

2. Cementing authority - The Prime Minister may select Cabinet ministers to cement their authority and leadership. For example, this may include selecting their own Cabinet instead of retaining the Cabinet members from a previous Prime Minister.

3. Rewarding loyalty - Cabinet ministers are also often selected based on loyalty. For example, appointing those who acted as allies to the Prime Minster in their campaign for leadership.

4. Potential to become a rival - The Prime Minster may choose Cabinet members from among members of their party who had initially opposed the PM's leadership bid. This can prevent these members from becoming rivals and gain their loyalty.

The UK Cabinet 2022

This section will look at who is currently sitting on the UK Cabinet, as of November 2022. Rishi Sunak became the leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister after Liz Truss' resignation in October of 2019. Sunak hand-selected the ministers of his Cabinet, which are currently as follows:

1. Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for Civil Service, Minister for the Union

2. Dominic Raab - Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice

3. Jeremy Hunt - Chancellor of the Exchequer

4. James Cleverly - Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs

5. Suella Braverman - Secretary of State for the Home Department

6. Ben Wallace - Secretary of State for Defence

7. Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

8. Michael Gove - Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities; Minister for Intergovernmental Relations

9. Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

10. Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council, Leader of the House of Commons

11. Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords, Lord Privy Seal

12. Grant Shapps - Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

13. Thérèse Coffey - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

14. Kemi Badenoch - Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade

15. Mel Stride - Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

16. Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education

17. Mark Haper - Secretary of State for Transport

18. Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

19. Nadhim Zahawi - Minister Without Portfolio

20. Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

21. Alister Jack - Secretary of State for Scotland

22. David TC Davies - Secretary of State for Wales

The UK Cabinet Functions

The three primary functions that the UK Cabinet plays are decision-making, proposing legislation, and proposing the budget.

One of the primary functions of the UK Cabinet is making policy decisions. Most concerns that the Cabinet discusses can be rectified by implementing or changing policies held within the different governmental departments. Therefore, a lot of their work can be seen in the official changing of policies within the government. This can be important in setting a 'vision' that the Cabinet has for the country and real-world implications. Many of these policy decisions are made in committees. They can help make decisions in small groups selected to work on specific areas of concern.

Although the cabinet doesn't pass legislation itself, it can propose legislation. They would do this by creating a bill including the new proposed law and then passing it on to Parliament to be considered. While the Cabinet is not the only body that can propose legislation, the majority of legislation that Parliament passes is proposed by the Cabinet.

The UK Cabinet also drafts and proposes the budget, which decides on taxation and public spending. The Exchequer, a vital Cabinet minister, drafts the budget with the PM and then reveals it to the rest of the Cabinet. Once finalised, the Exchequer presents the budget to the House of Commons, where MPs debate and amend it and, once agreed, pass it as a Finance Bill.

UK Cabinet Powers

The UK Cabinet holds a variety of important powers. These are royal prerogatives, initiating primary legislation and creating secondary legislation.

The main powers held by the Cabinet are royal prerogative powers. This princ allows the Cabinet ministers to hold powers that were historically only held by the sovereign.

The prerogative powers of the Cabinet are not very formally defined, but some of the more important ones are the power to declare war, sign treaties, and act in an emergency to maintain order.

Another power given to the ministers and Cabinet as a whole is that of their ability to initiate legislation. The powers of initiating legislation refer to the Cabinet being able to propose new legislation and putting it to parliament to undergo the passage of a bill. As the Cabinet is a body within the executive, they have priority to push for their legislation to be initiated quickly.

The Cabinet also has the power to create secondary legislation. This power is used to add more detail and update primary legislation to reflect current affairs. As such, Primary legislation is legislation passed by parliament that is made into an Act of Parliament, and secondary legislation is when Cabinet makes small changes to these acts.

The UK Cabinet Background

In today's political world, the UK Cabinet is one of the most authoritative bodies within government, but how did the Cabinet as we know it today evolve? Well, the position of Prime Minister was formally introduced in the 1937 Ministers of the Crown Act which also introduced the ability of the Prime Minister to select ministers to sit in Cabinet with him. But, the idea of Cabinet ministers has been around for a little longer.

Fig. 2 - Cabinet office, Whitehall, London

The earliest form of the UK Cabinet was the Privy Council in the 12th Century which advised the monarch. This council changed over time; it got larger and dealt with more administrative matters. The modern Cabinet has its roots in the 17th and 18th centuries when a smaller, more informal committee of advisors to the monarch gained importance.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the functions of this committee were developed and defined, but it wasn't until the 20th Century that this became what it is today. In 1919, the War Cabinet Secretariat was created; this effectively replaced the old informal Cabinet with a formal body that had authoritative power and policies which informed the Cabinets to follow.