Where does decision-making power lie in the British executive?

Ultimately, the decision-making power in the British executive lies in the interdependence of all the key institutions in the central government. It is first important to identify which actors make up the British executive and define what decision-making power involves. Rhodes describes the concept of the core executive as ‘all those organisations and procedures which coordinate central government policies, and act as final arbiters of conflict between different parts of the government machine’(Rhodes 1995: 2). In a broad sense, the British executive consists of the interaction between the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, and the Civil Service. Decision-making power within the executive is the ability to control or influence the direction, timing, and scope of policy. To establish that this decision-making power is fluid and not largely entrenched in any single executive institution, an assessment of the Westminister model will explore the debate between the prime ministerial model and the cabinet government model.

Throughout the twentieth century, the study of British government has been centred on the Westminister model directly or indirectly (Smith 1999: 9). According to the Westminister model, all decisions are made by Parliament and there is no higher authority. The Parliament has both authority and the legitimacy because the House of Commons is elected by the people. The Cabinet and the Prime Minister are answerable to Parliament, and the decisions are put into practice by a neutral civil service. Power is concentrated within the Parliamentary system and is relatively insulated against outside influences.

A key concept of the Westminister model is parliamentary sovereignty. As most of the decision-making is done in the Parliament, parliamentary sovereignty is essentially executive sovereignty. Within the Parliament, the political culture of hierarchy, secrecy, and elitism locates the key sites of power in the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, and high ranking officers in the civil service. The standard controversy that now occupies study of the British executive is between advocates of the prime ministerial power thesis and the cabinet government thesis (Rhodes 1995: 13).

The Prime Ministerial Thesis

The Prime Minister has no constitutionally defined role and the checks and balances on a Prime Minister are predominantly informal and political, not legal. Since the 1960s, many academics, commentators, and politicians have asserted the rise of the prime ministerial thesis. The prime ministerial thesis contends that the Prime Minister exerts supreme authority over the executive and has complete control over decision-making.

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Since the post-war period, there have been a number of institutional challenges to suggest this. Wilson (1964-70) established the Political Office at Number 10 and expanded the press office; Heath (1970-74) established the Central Policy Review Staff. Wilson (1974-76) formally created the Policy Unit at Number 10 and many Cabinet members during his time, including Denis Healey and Tony Benn, spoke of the centralisation of power in the role of the Prime Minister. In addition, Thatcher (1979-1990) significantly reduced the role of the Cabinet and intervened considerably in departmental policy decisions. She worked through ad hoc groups, special advisors, and bilateral meetings with Cabinet ministers. She was also considered by many of her colleagues to be domineering in Cabinet affairs; three of her senior colleagues – Michael Heseltine, Nigel Lawson, and Geoffrey Howe resigned because of the way she ran the Cabinet. Francis Pym, the Foreign Secretary (1982-83), particularly disapproved of Thatcher’s style: ‘I object to a system that deliberately pits Downing Street against individual Departments, breeds resentment amongst ministers and Civil Servants and turns the Prime Minister into a President’ (Pym 1984). More recently, Blair (1997-2010) increased the size and the centrality of the Policy Unit. He also created the role of Cabinet enforcer to impose prime ministerial will on departments and make policy delivery more effective.

This expansion of power in the role of the Prime Minister can be attributed to personality; Thatcher, for one, was noted by Kenneth Baker, the Secretary of State for Education, to revel in the soubriquet, ‘The Iron Lady’. Yet, the power of the Prime Minister is also institutional and contextual. The proponents of the prime ministerial model point to the many exclusive resources that the Prime Minister has access to. Among these, the most traditionally cited formal resources are patronage, control of the Cabinet agenda, appointment of Cabinet Committees and the use of the Prime Minister’s Office. Through these resources, the Prime Minister can theoretically appoint individuals who will pander to his interests and set agenda at certain timings or even repress certain issues from being debated in the Cabinet. The Prime Minister can also redraw boundaries of government without consultation by other Cabinet members or senior officials. For example, in 1974, Wilson decided to divide the Department of Trade and Industry into two departments to prevent Tony Benn from having a significant power base. In addition, the post of the Prime Minister is recognised as carrying a great authority by other ministers, the civil service, and heads of foreign states. Prime ministerial signals can have an immediate and dramatic impact on the direction of policy. In many ways, the resources vested in the post of the Prime Minister allows the Prime Minister to directly and indirectly influence policy and decision-making significantly.

Yet, a key criticism of the prime ministerial thesis is that it fails to realistically explain the distribution of power in the core executive. The fact that the Prime Minister has no clearly defined role leaves the powers of the post largely dependent on the political context, situation, and personality. Though the Prime Minister has many resources, these are essentially powerless without support from rest of the executive. In extreme cases, the lack of support by the Cabinet or Parliament can lead to the resignation of the Prime Minister. G.W. Jones gives an account of how Thatcher was forced to resign in ‘The Downfall of Margaret Thatcher’. He says: ‘She was murdered: assaulted by blows from three sources’. The first blow was by a drop in public opinion polls after a series of policy failures; the second came in November 1990 from the House of Commons in which she was four votes short of the winning number; the third and final blow was by the cabinet. It was only after listening to the views of her cabinet colleagues that Thatcher decided to resign (Jones 1995:103). Her view was that ‘if her cabinet was against her, numbers no longer mattered’ (The Economist 1991). The Prime Minister only has power when it is allowed by members of the Cabinet, the Parliament, and the British people.

Furthermore, the Prime Minister has neither the time nor the expertise to meaningfully exert influence on the details of policymaking that goes on in the committees. Taking this issue to the state of affairs today, the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes key decisions about the economy. An example of this is way the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, has been introducing austerity measures with support of the Prime Minister. Similarly, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, controlled significant institutional resources including the Treasury. He was seen as the architect of Britain’s economic revival in the mid 1980s and delivered a balanced budget with his radical tax-cutting budget in 1988. Despite major disagreements with Thatcher, Lawson was unassailable. As such, many senior ministers have vast resources and authority which makes it practically impossible for a Prime Minister to dismiss them.

Cabinet Government Thesis

The Cabinet is composed of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers, who are the most senior of government ministers. The Cabinet meets regularly to discuss policy. The Cabinet has traditionally been the supreme decision-making executive body in British government. Though the Cabinet itself does not have any inherent legal power, the collective authority and influence of individual Secretaries give the Cabinet a big leverage in decision-making. Nineteenth century constitutionalist Walter Bagehot described the Cabinet as the core decision-making body and the ‘efficient secret’ of the British government in his book The English Constitution. With the increasing prominence of the prime ministerial thesis, it could be said that the Cabinet government thesis has been on decline. Yet, the Cabinet thesis still presents meaningful insights into the British executive.

Most importantly, the Cabinet significantly influences how much power the Prime Minister can wield. Though Thatcher’s term is commonly regarded as a period of increased prime ministerial power, it can actually also be seen as an example of the manifestation of Cabinet power. In Thatcher’s own words: ‘A prime minister who knows that his or her cabinet has withheld as its support is fatally weakened. I knew – and I’m sure that they knew – that I would not willingly remain an hour in 10 Downing Street without the real authority to govern’ (Thatcher 1993). The Cabinet can significantly impact whether a Prime Minister remains in office.

Traditionally, the Prime Minister is ‘primus inter pares’, or first among equals. Though it could be said that the term underestimates the power of the Prime Minister in modern British government, the term still gives the sense of dependence the Prime Minister has on the Cabinet. Cabinet convention dictates that the Prime Minister consult the appropriate minister on a specific policy issue and the decision be made accordingly. The Prime Minister thus only has limited influence over any department of government. This has two implications: firstly, a large check is imposed on the power of the Prime Minister; secondly, the time-consuming process reduces the number of issues in which the Prime Minister can directly intervene. As a collective unit with the top ministers of government gathered, the Cabinet has considerable decision-making powers.

Yet, there is criticism of the Cabinet government system that most policymaking does not actually occur in the Cabinet; rather it takes place in cabinet committees. Cabinet committees reduce the burden of the Cabinet by enabling ministers in related areas to settle issues in a smaller forum. In practice, committees have bypassed the Cabinet by making policy decisions and simply informing the Cabinet of the decision. For instance, the ad hoc committee MISC 7 set up by Thatcher announced the decision to go for the American Trident C4 missile to the full Cabinet only on 15 July 1980, just hours before it was announced to the House of Commons (Hennessey 2000: 410).

Another criticism of the Cabinet model of government is that it is the civil service that actually provides policy analysis and recommendations and has a monopoly on information. In the Westminister model, a neutral civil service is assumed; however, officials have highly political roles. Though they are not political in any party sense, officials guide ministers to make political choices and furnish ministers with answers to questions in Parliament and select committees. This leads to the Whitehall model of government. This model will not be discussed in detail. As Thatcher said, ‘advisors advise, ministers decide’. The power of the civil service lies on influence, rather than on decision-making.

The Unproductive Debate

It is evident that neither the prime ministerial thesis nor the Cabinet government thesis adequately expresses the complex relationships that make up decision-making power in the British executive. This debate is limited in part by the narrow definition of power. For the proponents of either thesis, power is conceived as an object that belongs to a particular actor or institutions. It is as if power is something like a tennis ball that volleys between the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.

In fact, power is fluid; it ebbs and it flows. It is held jointly by the different actors in the Core Executive: the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, and the Civil Service. The actual decision-making occurs in the Cabinet and the committees; the Prime Minister exerts a great deal of influence on the whole system through authority and personnel management; the Civil Service also has its own circuits of influence through its monopoly on expertise and information. Ultimately, executive decision-making power does not lie anywhere. Instead, it is rests on the perpetual exchange of resources by the different actors according to context.

References

Hennessey, P. (2000) The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders since 1945, Palgrave. New York.

Jones, G.W. (1995) ‘The Downfall of Margaret Thatcher’, in Rhodes, R. and Dunleavy, P. (eds), Prime Minister, Cabinet and Core Executive, Macmillian. London.

Rhodes, R.A.W. (1995) ‘Introducing the Core Executive’, in Rhodes, R. and Dunleavy, P. (eds), Prime Minister, Cabinet and Core Executive, Macmillian. London.

Smith, M.J. (1999) ‘Analysing the Core Executive’, in Smith, M.J, The Core Executive in Britain, Macmillan. London.