House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee Role and Powers of the Prime Minister Oral Evidence Oral evidence taken on Thursday 7 February 2013 and Thursday 7 March 2013 Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 7 February and 7 March 2013 HC 975 -i and -ii Published on 16 May 2013 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £8 .5 0 cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [SO] Processed: [15-05-2013 16:42] Job: 029318 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029318/029318_o001_th_Corrected transcript HC 975-i.xml Political and Constitutional Reform Committee: Evidence Ev 13 Thursday 7 February 2013 Members present: Mr Graham Allen (Chair) Mr Christopher Chope Tristram Hunt Sheila Gilmore Mrs Eleanor Laing Andrew Griffiths Stephen Williams Fabian Hamilton ________________ Examination of Witness Witness: Professor Robert Hazell CBE, Professor of Government and the Constitution, and Director of the Constitution Unit, School of Public Policy, UCL, gave evidence. Chair: Robert, how are you? particular the size of the Prime Minister’s majority in Professor Hazell: I am very well, thank you. Parliament, the Prime Minister’s standing in his party Chair: Very good to see you and welcome to the and his standing in the country. So the Prime Select Committee. We are looking this morning, with Minister’s power and authority waxes and wanes your guidance and that of Professor Michael Foley, at depending on those political factors. the role and powers of the Prime Minister. This is one of our ongoing inquiries. You do not want to make Q69 Fabian Hamilton: What I am trying to get at is any opening statements, so if you are ready, we will how far has coalition had a positive effect on jump straight into the questions we have for you. constraining those powers? Is that a positive in itself, Fabian Hamilton: Good morning, Professor Hazell. and if it is, how can it be maintained in a majority Professor Hazell: Good morning, Mr Hamilton. government where there is no coalition? Professor Hazell: Whether you regard it as a positive Q67 Fabian Hamilton: To start off, what do you or negative depends on an individual’s perception of think are the positive and negative aspects of the whether the Government and the powers of the Prime effect of coalition government on the way that the Minister need constraining, whether we need more of Prime Minister carries out his role? How has it a brake, more of a collective brake, on the way in affected this Prime Minister compared to previous which the Prime Minister operates and runs the Prime Ministers who have had an overall majority in Government. There probably has been, among the House of Commons? academics certainly, a majority view that we do need Professor Hazell: The main respect is the obvious a stronger collective brake. one, namely that coalition has had quite a severely In terms of how that brake is operated, you will know constraining effect. You can see that in a formal it is operated in particular through the Cabinet document that the new Government published, I think, committee system, in that every committee has a on 21 May 2010: of the initial coalition agreements, Chair from one of the coalition partners and a Deputy it is the key procedural annex, called The Coalition Chair from the other coalition party. All the agendas Agreement for Stability and Reform. It sets outs in have to be jointly signed off by both Chairs, so three pages how the new coalition Government everything those committees discuss is jointly agreed proposed to co-ordinate all major decision making and and all the decisions made in those Cabinet policy making between the two coalition partners. committees are, in effect, jointly agreed. So that is Critically, it constrained the power of the Prime Minister in relation to the way that Cabinet and how, at the apex of Government, through the Cabinet Cabinet committees would operate, because no committee system, the coalition operates and all Cabinet committee can be established, or its terms of decisions in the new government are coalitionised. reference set, or its membership set, without the You asked if that could be carried through to single consent of the Deputy Prime Minister; and no party Government. The most effective way in which ministerial appointments can be made without the it might be carried through would be through the new consent of the Deputy Prime Minister, nor can guidance for the conduct of Government, which is Ministers be dismissed without his consent. called the Cabinet Manual. As you know, a chapter of that was published in draft before the May 2010 Q68 Fabian Hamilton: Are these positives, do you election, and the full Cabinet Manual approved by the think? new Government was published, from memory, Professor Hazell: I am saying these are all major towards the end of 2011. The expectation is that each constraints on the way in which a British Prime new administration will revise and re-publish the Minister can run the Government as head of Cabinet Manual. That is what has happened in New Government. You will know that, compared with most Zealand, and it was from New Zealand that we other heads of Government, the British Prime Minister borrowed the idea of a Cabinet Manual. has, in large part thanks to our unwritten constitution, a relatively free hand. In our system, the Prime Q70 Fabian Hamilton: Forgive me, but I am right Minister’s powers are very extensive and they are in thinking that New Zealand also has an unwritten constrained largely by political constraints, in constitution? cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [15-05-2013 16:42] Job: 029318 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029318/029318_o001_th_Corrected transcript HC 975-i.xml Ev 14 Political and Constitutional Reform Committee: Evidence 7 February 2013 Professor Robert Hazell CBE Professor Hazell: It does indeed, yes, and it has a in other countries’ written constitutions, but on the detailed Cabinet Manual, not least because of the whole, they are defined in very brief and sketchy experience now of five coalition governments in a terms. To give you an illustration from the post-war row. If this Committee wanted to recommend that the constitution of Japan, it says in Article 68, “The Prime more collegiate style of cabinet government that has Minister shall appoint the Ministers of State. The undoubtedly been practised under the coalition were Prime Minister may remove the Ministers of State as to become a norm for future governments, including he chooses” and then in terms of his functions, single party governments, I think the most promising jumping to Article 72, “The Prime Minister, vehicle in which to express that new norm would be representing the Cabinet, submits Bills, reports on a Cabinet Manual. general national affairs and foreign relations to the Diet” that is the Japanese Parliament, “and exercises Q71 Fabian Hamilton: Thank you. In your book, control and supervision over various administrative How Coalition Works at the Centre, in chapter 4, you branches”. It is pretty terse. From the written interviewed people. I wonder whether your views and constitutions I have looked at, that is not untypical in conclusions have changed since those interviews took terms of a general description of the functions of the place in the spring and summer of 2011 and since you Prime Minister. There may be other clauses in the published the book, just over a year ago. constitution relating to specific matters that add a bit Professor Hazell: That is a very fair question to which but, on the whole, the powers of Prime Ministers in I cannot give a terribly satisfactory answer. The book written constitutions are not as extensively defined as was based on very intensive interviews in 2011—from they are, for example, in our new Cabinet Manual. memory, we interviewed almost 150 people—but I Chair: That is very helpful. have conducted no systematic interviewing since. I make occasional visits to Whitehall—I am going to Q73 Mr Chope: You say there has been a revival of the Cabinet Office today—so the impressions that I Cabinet Government because of closer working collect now are anecdotal rather than systematic. But between the Prime Minister and the Treasury and the the anecdotal impressions are that the coalition Cabinet Office, but is that not really just confined to continues to operate in the more collegiate manner what I describe as the Gang of Four—the Prime that I have described, despite its difficulties and Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Chief disagreements that have surfaced in the press. It is Secretary to the Treasury and the Chancellor of the still, I am told, a more harmonious and more Exchequer, the four of them together? Osborne and collegiate style of operation than we saw under the the Prime Minister, Danny Alexander and the Deputy single party Government led by Tony Blair, in Prime Minister, they are, effectively, deciding particular because of the very well known deep divide everything, rather than the Cabinet as a whole between No. 10 and the Treasury led by Gordon deciding on everything. Brown. There is no equivalent to that huge fracture in Professor Hazell: In the chapter of our book that Mr the Labour Government and the secrecy and very non- Hamilton referred to, which describes how the collegial behaviour that gave rise to. coalition operates at the centre, we describe in the first The Government in certain respects has slowed down half of that chapter, the formal decision-making on big policy issues because the coalition partners process through Cabinet and Cabinet committees that cannot agree.