UK Government

7 Key excerpts on "UK Government"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  British Civilization

  An Introduction

  • John Oakland(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The powers of the state in many countries are defined and laid down in a written document (or constitution); are often classified as executive, legislative and judicial; relate to distinctive institutions (government, parliament and the judiciary respectively); and are separate. In Britain, however, there is no absolute separation of powers, for example between executive and legislature.

  Britain is sometimes described as a constitutional monarchy, where the monarch reigns as head of state without executive powers under constitutional limitations. It is also referred to as a parliamentary system, where the UK Parliament (consisting of the House of Commons, the House of Lords and formally the monarch) in London is the legislature and has traditionally possessed the supreme power to make laws in UK matters (until EU entry).

  The executive UK Government (sitting mainly in the House of Commons) governs by passing its policies (some of which are applicable throughout Britain) through Parliament as Acts of Parliament and operates through ministries or departments headed by ministers or secretaries of state. Within the government, a Cabinet consisting of leading ministers and headed by the Prime Minister, present draft legislation, which is presented to Parliament as the legislating body. The relationships between Prime Minister, Cabinet and Parliament can be combative and sometimes constitutionally unclear.

  The judicial branch is independent of the legislative and executive branches of government. The judges (judiciary) of the higher courts determine the law and interpret Acts of Parliament. The highest court of appeal for many matters in the UK is the Supreme Court, created in 2009. It also determines devolution disputes concerning England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

  These branches, although distinguishable from each other, are not entirely separate. For example, the monarch is formally head of the executive, legislature and judiciary. A Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons and a peer of the House of Lords may both be in the government of the day.

  These branches are supposed to operate according to the British constitution. But Britain has no written constitution contained in one document. Instead, the constitution consists of distinctive elements, most of which are in written form. These are statute law (Acts of Parliament), common law or judge-made case law, conventions (principles and practices of government which are not legally binding but have the force of law), documents such as Magna Carta, and EU law.

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  Pass the British Citizenship Test: Teach Yourself Ebook Epub

  • Bernice Walmsley(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Teach Yourself

    (Publisher)

  5

  How the United Kingdom is governed (from Life in the UK )

  In this chapter you will:

  • learn about the government institutions in the UK
  • find out about the devolved administrations
  • see how the UK takes its place in Europe and the world.

  Overview

  This chapter from Life in the UK delves into how government in Britain works, and you should pay particular attention to the institutions that are examined in this chapter and how they work together to produce a fair and efficient system.

  The chapter covers Parliament and how the political party system affects the way Britain is governed; it goes on to explain how the formal institutions, such as the monarchy and the House of Commons , affect people’s lives at a national and local level. It then looks at local government and, on a wider scale, how power has been devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

  Now on to the official information that comes from Chapter 4 : How the UK is Governed, in the Home Office publication Life in the United Kingdom – A Journey to Citizenship .

  In this chapter there is information about:

  GOVERNMENT

   

  • the system of government
  • the monarchy
  • the electoral system
  • political Parties
  • being a citizen
  • voting
  • contacting your MP
  • the UK in Europe and the world
  • the European Union
  • the Commonwealth
  • the United Nations .

  The British Constitution

  As a constitutional democracy, the United Kingdom is governed by a wide range of institutions, many of which provide checks on each other’s powers. Most of these institutions are of long standing: they include the monarchy, Parliament, (consisting of the House of Commons and the House of Lords), the office of Prime Minister, the Cabinet , the judiciary, the police, the civil service , and the institutions of local government. More recently, devolved administrations have been set up for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Together, these formal institutions, laws and conventions form the British Constitution. Some people would argue that the roles of other less formal institutions, such as the media and pressure groups

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  Social Services

  Made Simple Books

  • Tony Byrne, Colin F. Padfield(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Made Simple

    (Publisher)

  2 An outline of government Newcomers to the study of the social services may find a short description of the political structure and institutions (i.e. 'the Gov-ernment' in broad terms) will be helpful in understanding how the social services are brought into being and administered. The British Constitution The British Constitution is somewhat different from other nations' constitutions. A number of labels - monarchical, parliamentary, unitary and democratic - indicate its main features. It is monarchical in that the Queen is Head of State, although she now plays only a formal part in the conduct of government, acting always on the advice of her ministers. It is parliamentary in the sense that Parliament is the sovereign law-making body and that the Government is formed out of Parliament and dependent on its continuing support. It is unitary in the sense that Parliament is ultimately responsible for the whole of the United Kingdom, although it may delegate some of its powers to other institutions such as local authorities. It is democratic in the sense that the House of Commons (the more important and effective of the two Houses) is elected on the basis of universal adult suffrage, all persons over eighteen having the right to vote at Parliamentary elections. The main organs of government There are three main organs of government: 1 The legislature (Parliament). 2 The executive (the Cabinet and other ministers in charge of Government departments, staffed by civil servants; local author-ities; and a number of statutory boards such as British Coal and British Rail). 3 The judiciary (the judges and the law courts). An outline of government 15 The separation of powers This is a doctrine that the three functions of government (legislative, executive and judicial) should be discharged by separate bodies. To prevent misgovernment no two of these functions should be entrusted to the same hands.

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  Politics in Ireland

  Convergence and Divergence in a Two-Polity Island

  • Maura Adshead, Jonathan Tonge(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  Part 1 Political Institutions 1 The Executive The label ‘parliamentary government’ is a half-truth. It correctly emphasises that a prime minister does not stand alone; he or she depends upon the confidence of a popularly elected assembly at the pinnacle of a system of representation. But parliament does not in any meaningful sense govern; that is the responsibility of the executive in which a prime minis-ter is primus . (Rose, 1991: 9) Introduction The Executive is the branch of government responsible for the implementation of laws and policies made by the legislature, the group of decision-makers who take overall responsibility for the direction and coordination of government policy. Executives are usually centred upon the leadership of one individual. This may be the Head of State (e.g. the President in the United States), or the Head of Government (Prime Minister in the UK), or, more occasionally, a combination of the two (such as the semi-presidentialism in France). As has long been noted, ‘because a parliamentary system links the legislature and the executive, the prime minister has greater potential influence upon the direction of government than a president subject to the checks and balances of an American-style constitution’ (Rose, 1991: 9). This potential, however, is generally circumscribed by a variety of formal institutional constraints, political circumstances and conventions, as well as the broader socio-economic context within which the Prime Minister and government must operate. In terms of formal institutional constraints, federal states and those with written constitutions usually present the clearest restraints to executive autonomy – in terms of the division of powers and responsibility between the Head of State, Head of Government, cabinet, Legislature and Judiciary. Still, even without these, prime ministers may find themselves equally constrained by the political conditions of their office.

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  Public Law Essentials

  • Jean McFadden, Dale McFadzean(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • EUP

    (Publisher)

  7 THE UNITED KINGDOM GOVERNMENT The Government of the United Kingdom consists of the monarch, the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and other Ministers of the Crown. The Queen is the titular head of the Government and all actions of government are carried out in her name. Her role, however, is largely a formal one and the position of the monarch has already been discussed fully in Chapter 5. THE PRIME MINISTER AND THE CABINET There are many areas in public law where law and politics become entwined and none more so than in relation to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. There are relatively few statutes and precious little case authority which refer to either the Cabinet or the Prime Minister. As a result, the rules governing each institution are not, in the main, rules of strict law but derive from political conventions and usage. The Cabinet and the office of Prime Minister have evolved together since the 18th century and the decline of the Privy Council seems to have coincided with the emergence of the Cabinet. In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht was concluded by the Cabinet, not by the Privy Council, and in 1714 George I acceded to the throne. He was from Hanover, in what is now Germany, with little interest in Britain and his attendances at Cabinet became less and less frequent until they finally stopped altogether. Thus, someone else had to preside in place of the monarch and it is accepted that Sir Robert Walpole (1721–42), when First Lord of the Treasury under Georges I and II, became the first Prime Minister. However, many historians doubt that anyone prior to Sir Robert Peel (1841–46) would count as the first modern Prime Minister. By that time, some of the important conventions of the Cabinet were becoming firmly established.

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  Administrative Justice in Context

  • Michael Adler(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  Governance has three main dimensions. First, there are the ordering prin-ciples, such as the market, or bureaucracy or networks, which provide the con-stitutional framework for governing; the fundamental laws, rules, and standards, which determine such things as the locus of decision making, the limits within which power is exercised, and the boundary between the public and the private. Secondly, governance involves a set of levels, sites and locations, for example global, regional, national and local. Thirdly, it entails a set of techniques that determine such questions as how power is exercised, how rights are defined and protected, and how interests are represented. The Westminster Model The form of governance that became established in the UK was the Westminster Model. For a long time this was a highly successful form of governance, resting on what David Marquand (1988) has called ‘club government’, a set of informal networks which prized personal connection, authority, expertise and secrecy, and sought to deflect democratic pressures for more open and accountable government. At the heart of the Westminster model is the doctrine of parliamentary sov-ereignty, Crown-in-Parliament, laid out in its clearest form by Dicey (1885) at the end of the nineteenth century. In this doctrine, sovereignty is undivided and unlimited. There is no authority higher than the Crown-in-Parliament to which an appeal can be made. There is no separation of powers, which means that the courts are in a subordinate position to Parliament. They can interpret decisions of The Changing Context of Governance 5 the Parliament in various ways but they cannot formally overturn or block them. There is no codified constitutional document to which the courts can refer to reject a particular piece of legislation. The constitution is a matter of conventions and precedents, the latter established by acts of Parliament.

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  Exploring British Politics

  • Mark Garnett, Peter Dorey, Philip Lynch(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  4. Public profile High public profile Communicator-in-chief for the governmentSpeaks for nation in times of crisisRepresents UK on world stage

  Poor response to crisis undermines authorityMay become focus of media criticismUnpopularity weakens loyalty of MPs/ministers, who fear electoral defeat, and loss of their own seats

  5. Policymaking input Directs government policy and sets agendaHas authority to get involved in any policy areaPolitical rewards of policy success

  Lacks time and detailed knowledge Lacks resources provided by a specific government departmentMay be personally associated with failure of a key policy

  6. Prime Minister’s Office Provides independent advice and supportHelps PM to direct policy

  Prime Minister’s Office has limited resourcesOther departments have own interestsAppointing more advisers also means more staff to manage, and more scope for conflicting advice

  Source: Adapted from M. Garnett and P. Lynch, AS UK Government and Politics (Deddington: Philip Allan Updates, 2nd edition, 2005), pp. 271–73; P. Dorey, Policy Making in Britain (London: Sage, 2nd edition, 2014), p. 76; M.J. Smith, The Core Executive in Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999), p. 32.

  • powers of patronage
  • the authority of the office
  • party leadership
  • public standing
  • policymaking input
  • the Prime Minister’s Office
  • the Cabinet Office.

  Patronage

  The prime minister was previously charged with making a range of Crown and public appointments, including senior positions within the civil service, military, intelligence and security services, judiciary, and Church of England, plus various positions in the public sector, and chairs of key committees of inquiry (e.g. the Hutton and Leveson Inquiries (see Chapter 5

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