Lord Wilson of Dinton - Cabinet power at the centre of government

One cannot consider Cabinet on its own. It is the place where wider failings tend to come together.  But let me offer you the following to help get things going, as a rather random collection of immediate thoughts.  It is personal and off the record.

Power at the centre of government

The centre of government and its success revolves around three seats of power: the Treasury; the Prime Minister supported by Number 10 and the Cabinet Office; and the Cabinet, the top forum for taking decisions and overseeing the workings of government.

The balance of power between these three fluctuates.  Power is fluid and moves around in response to complex factors such as the success of individuals and their policies, their degree of experience inside government, their relationships with Parliament and their Party and public opinion. It is an unseen, never-ending, turbulence in which the different institutions and individuals do their best to govern effectively.

Relations between the Prime Ministers and their Cabinets are unusual for constitutional reasons.  The role of Prime Ministers is non-executive. They have only two main powers.  The first is the ability to advise the Monarch on the exercise of the Royal Prerogative.  This is no mean power given that it includes the power to go to war without consulting Parliament, as well as the power to appoint (and dismiss) Secretaries of State, but it is rather random.  The second is the power to sum up discussions of Cabinet without taking a vote, again a strong power but limited. Virtually all real executive powers and the money to exercise them rest with Secretaries of State, departments and agencies, delegated by statute and the Treasury.  The Prime Minister has formal control over little, if any, money.  

Despite the limitations of this formal position, the role of Prime Minister has tended to become more presidential in recent decades.  They tend to act as if they had executive power, and to be expected to act as if they had.  There is however a practical tension between the traditional view of the role of Prime Minister and this more executive Presidential role.  It affects both her/his relations with Cabinet and the role of Number 10 and the Cabinet Office.  When cabinets meet, do Cabinet Ministers report to the Prime Minister as their CEO or are they taking part in a discussion among equals?  If Prime Ministers are quasi-executive, where are the staff to support them? 

Against this background it is hard to consider whether the Cabinet needs reform in the abstract, divorced from any context.  Making the Prime Minister formally an executive role would be a formidable task which I don’t believe any government would wish to undertake.  I suspect that the ambiguity is here to stay.  So the question perhaps is whether there are things which can be done to improve the working of the Cabinet, whether the Prime Minister inclines to the traditional or the more presidential interpretation.

There seem to me four persistent problems which could be addressed:

1. Leaks

The first is the perennial problem of leaks about Cabinet business, what is being discussed, who said what, and what has been decided.  This was one of the things - only one but a genuine problem - which made Mr Blair prefer sofa government. It seems reasonably clear that leaks have continued to trouble Prime Ministers since that time. More than that, the development of social media have made the impact of leaks much more damaging because they reach so many people and are liable to such distortion. Could one do anything about it or should one just shrug and say that this is a fact of political life?

Despite everything I still believe that the national interest is best served by having at the heart of government an arena where Ministers can argue and if necessary say stupid or unwise things without the fear of it being used against them in the media. It gives the best chance of all the main arguments being heard before a decision is taken and of important factors not being overlooked.   The present position puts too high a premium on successful political infighting and image, and too little on getting decisions right.

At heart stopping leaks is a matter of discipline for the Prime Minister to assert and enforce.  Could anything be done to strengthen her/his ability to do so?  The only solution that I have heard that might just work is that at the start of every new Cabinet its members collectively should swear a solemn oath to serve the national interest in their discussions and to respect the privacy of those discussions by not repeating what was said or decided to any outside person, including the press and media.  The only person who would be allowed to report what was discussed would be the Prime Minister and her/his principal media person or the responsible Secretary of State in a statement in Parliament.  Failure to observe the oath would render a Minister or their officials liable to dismissal.  Would this work?

2. Improve the workings of Number 10

The recent debate in the House of Lords on 28 November set out clearly the concerns which some of us have about the current failure to preserve a balance between the permanent civil service and political appointees in Number 10.  Robin Butler’s speech set them out well, and I will not repeat them here.  I do not believe Cabinet can work at its best if the channels of communication between permanent civil servants in departments and the people advising the Prime Minister in Number 10 are not working well.

3. Improve the workings of the Cabinet Office 

In parallel with that, I am concerned by the sheer size of the Cabinet Office and indeed of Number 10.  When I was Cabinet Secretary the number of staff, ignoring agencies, was by my recollection around 1,200-1,300 fulltime equivalents: at 1 March 2023 it was 9,249. When I was head of the Economic and Domestic Secretariat under Mrs Thatcher in the late 1980s, covering most domestic issues other than law and order, I had 6 staff including myself and my secretary: the number now, I am told, is upwards of 120. These numbers may not be right but it is clear that there’s has been a big expansion. 

Here again, I suspect that the pull of the Presidential side of the Prime Minister’s role may be drawing work into the centre which should remain in departments.  If one believes that the role of the Prime Minister is primarily non-executive; to provide leadership inside and outside government; and to set the main priorities in collective discussion, with the main work being done within government departments which are equipped to deliver results; then the main task of the Cabinet Office is to map the issues which need to be addressed collectively, to ensure that they are brought forward to Cabinet and Cabinet committees in a timely way, and where necessary to monitor progress against them.  This should not need a lot of staff.

4. Support for the main Opposition Party

Finally, one of the traditional skills of the civil service has been to provide incoming governments with support which enables them to look as though they are on top of the job from their first day even though in practice it may take them months or even years to get into that position.  This has not happened with the recent change of government, perhaps because of loss of corporate memory or perhaps a failure of communication.

We have in the past discussed the possibility, with the agreement of the government of the day, of seconding, say, up to a dozen civil servants to the main opposition party before an Election to help to organise a smooth transfer of power in the event of their winning a majority.  This would raise many issues.  But maybe the time has come to raise the possibility again.