全屏显示专题章节

The British government is the supreme administrative institution which manages state affairs. The Cabinet is the core of leadership of the British government. In Britain“government” and “cabinet” mean different things. “Government” is the collective name for all the ministers and junior ministers, plus four legal members and about twelve ministerial whips. The “Cabinet” is, on the other hand, made up of the Prime Minister, the Lord President of the Privy Council, the heads of the most important Departments and a few ministers without portfolios. Every important decision is made and carried out by the Cabinet, which directs and controls the armed forces, the police, the courts, the prisons and other organs. The British government can be divided into two parts-central government and local government. The former has great power since all local authorities obtain their existence, their powers and their function from it.

The Privy Council was established in the 15th century when Henry VI （1422-1461） was on the throne. At that time it was merely an advisory institution. During the reign of Charles I（1625-1646）, several offices were set up, one of which was in charge of foreign affairs and had greater power. The King and some councilors of the Council got together in a cabinet to discuss foreign and domestic affairs. Until the 18th century it was the central executive institution, which helped the kings or queens to manage state affairs. With the establishment of Cabinet government at the beginning of the 18th century, the Privy Council gradually lost its importance. Most of its power was transferred to the Cabinet step by step when newly-created government departments sprang up. In spite of this, it is the supreme governmental institution according to law, that is, it still has the formal powers of the executive. The Privy Council consists of about 400 （1993） councilors with the Lord President as their head, who are all Cabinet ministers, former or present, and those who have been appointed by the kings or queens on the advice of Prime Ministers.

A plenary session of the Privy Council is convened only when a king dies or when he declares his marriage. The Privy Council and it alone has the power to make some executive orders and proclamations in the presence of the sovereign. When the government wishes to have an order made, it arranges a meeting of the Council to be held for that purpose which is not difficult to achieve, because the people who attend are merely registering decisions which have been made elsewhere. Thus the Privy Council is of no importance in terms of exercising real political power.

There are some committees under the Privy Council. The most important one is the committee of justice. It is the supreme organ of justice for some countries in the British Commonwealth of Nations. It is composed of the judicial members of the House of Lords, the tops of the judicial departments of some countries in the British Commonwealth of Nations and the Lord President of the Privy Council of Great Britain. They are responsible for the handling of appeals.

In English, “cabinet” used to mean a small private room. As the Foreign Office of the Privy Council often met in a cabinet with the King, it was sometimes called the cabinet at the end of the 17th century.

When George I （1714-1727） came to the throne, he did not attend the meetings because he was from Germany and did not know English, so the meetings were presided over by a minister. Thus the Prime Minister appeared in his stead and this common practice grew up because of the absence of the King at the meetings. Not until 1937 could the Cabinet have a legal basis.

As a rule, the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons is the Prime Minister who is automatically appointed by the sovereign, and on the Prime Minister’s advice the sovereign formally appoints all the ministers. The Prime Minister effectively chooses the other ministers and may ask them to resign if he or she wishes. All of the ministers are collectively responsible for every part of the government’s administration, so the government is a fairly large body. Only the more important ministers are members of the Cabinet. So all the ministers can be divided into cabinet ministers and non-cabinet ministers. The non-cabinet ministers do not attend the Cabinet meetings but they must carry out its decisions and resign with the Cabinet at the same time. The number of cabinet members varies, being generally about 20. There were twenty-two members in Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet. A Cabinet member must be either a member of the House of Lords or a member of the House of Commons.

The Cabinet is certainly very influential. It is a decision-making organ, determining government policies. Although it is not recognized by any formal law, it has real powers. In many cases the formal order embodying a Cabinet decision must be carried out later by the Queen in her Privy Council or the two Houses of Parliament if a new law is made.

The Cabinet usually meets once a week, but sometimes more often, especially in times of emergency. It works in great secrecy. No outsider is allowed to see any Cabinet papers until they have become only of historical significance and no member of the Cabinet may say anything about the discussions that have taken place in the Cabinet. The rule is in general well observed. Only Cabinet ministers have detailed knowledge of the inner secrets of policy, so the Cabinet is a kind of “inner government” within the British government. But the Cabinet is always answerable to Parliament. Technically the Cabinet is an informal committee of Privy councilors as well. Whenever a person is appointed as a Cabinet minister, he is sure to be a member of the Privy Council as well and continues to be a member for the rest of his life.

After a general election the Crown appoints the Prime Minister who must be the leader of the party that has won the majority seats in the House of Commons. It is the Prime Minister who organizes the Cabinet and presides over its meetings. He or she actually decides on whowill be the other ministers, who are paid salaries varying between the Prime Minister’s,￡16 234 （1993） a year and ￡63 047 （1993） for a junior minister, the Lord Chancellor￡106 750 （1993）. The work of each minister is always kept under observation by an unofficial Shadow Cabinet²organized by the Opposition. The Prime Minister is the head of the government. He or she has the duty to report the government’s work to the King or Queen, has the right to direct all the departments, solves the issues between them and approves the decisions of departments which do not need to be discussed in the Cabinet. He has the last word in deciding government policy.

The Prime Minister not only has the power of appointment but also has the right to reorganize the government and speak for the government in the House of Commons. On important decisions he or she should answer the questions of the members of the House of Commons. As he or she is the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons, he or she can control parliament and influence other parties. He or she is the most influential person in Great Britain and in recent years. Strong Prime Ministers have shown a tendency to make policy decisions on their own, in the style of American presidents.

The Prime Minister works and lives in his or her famous residence, No. 10 Downing Street. It is named after George Downing, a British diplomat in the 17th century and has a history of over two hundred years as the British Prime Minister’s residence. The inside of “No. 10” has been reconstructed to suit its purposes. In it there are the Cabinet meeting hall, the Prime Minister’s office and so on. It is here that the Cabinet meets, the Prime Minister receives foreign guests, meets delegations sometimes and does other work. There is an oil painting gallery in which the portraits of all the Prime Ministers, from Robert Walpole to James Callaghan, are placed.

The Departmental Working Personnel

When we talk about “the Government” we are apt to discuss the ministers who are politicians. But we should not neglect the fact that each department has a large number or professional civil servants³, whose aggregate number in 1992 was 565 000. They do most of the work of running the department on the minister’s behalf. Though the minister changes, the civil servants remain to serve his successor. In the U.K. the change of a minister does not mean the change of departmental personnel because it is considered that the continuity of the personnel conduces to administrative stability. They may vote at elections but they are not allowed to be candidates for parliament or to give public support to any political party.

There are different classes in the departmental working personnel with a wide variety ofprofessional and technical qualifications. The administrative class is responsible for advising ministers on policy, for forecasting the possible effects of new measures and regulations and tackling any difficulties in carrying out the policies. The members of this class are the people who have passed a highly competitive examination of university degree standard and then go up the ladder.

Below the administrative class is the executive class which is responsible for the daily conduct of the department’s business. They are usually non-graduates at the age of eighteen, most of whom enter the service after leaving school, but some of whom are university graduates.

The clerical class is engaged in all the usual clerical work, including running departmental business, keeping records, etc. The clerical class is recruited from people who have received secondary education, usually until the age of about sixteen. Of course there are still others. There are typists, duplicator operators, messengers, paper keepers and office cleaners.

The Civil Service Commission which was set up in 1968 is in charge of the recruitment of all permanent civil servants in the Home Service of Great Britain and the Foreign Service, which is independent of both ministerial and parliamental control in selecting the civil servants who are chosen by examinations. Once a civil servant has an established post he has almost complete security of tenure. He can be removed only for improper conduct. He can also be promoted for his good work. Promotions from grade to grade are made by departments and those from class to class partly through centrally conducted competitions and partly by departments themselves. All promotions to the administrative class from other classes require Treasury approval. Promotions to most of the highest positions must get the approval of the Prime Minister. Promotion is not automatic in the light of seniority but selective, and based on the recommendations of superior officials.

The United Kingdom is made up of four big regions: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The division of administrative areas in England and Wales are basically the same; Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own systems. The present system of local government was introduced in April, 1974 after national reform on the basis of the Local Government Act of 1972. In England and Wales counties are the largest administrative areas in terms of local government. They have a history of more than 1000 years though in very earlytimes they were called “shires” and still many counties like Yorkshire, have “shire” as part of their names. Below them are districts—urban districts, rural districts of non-county boroughs. Parishes are the lowest administrative areas; they are local communities based on churches. The most populous cities, Manchester and Birmingham, the two major inland towns, Liverpool on the Mersey and Newcastle on the type, the two major ports, are called industrial conurbations. Counties, like Lancashire and Yorkshire, are called metropolitan counties; they came into existence in 1974. London, because of its special location, is divided into 32 boroughs and the City of London⁴, the oldest part of which covers only one square mile. In Scotland local government there are nine regions which are divided into 53 districts. There are twenty-six districts in Northern Ireland.

Every county, district and parish has its own council elected by the inhabitants. The number of members of each council varies depending on the population of the area. Most of the county councils have between forty to fifty; parish councils five to twenty. Members or county councils are elected every three years. With district councils there may be an election every year, but only one-third of the seats in the council are filled at each annual election; every councilor is elected for three years, but at any particular election only one third of the seats are filled. Every local council of a county of district has its presiding officer called the Chairman. But in a district which is called a borough or city he is called Mayor or Lord Mayor.

The income of the local government comes from two major sources.

One is from a local tax called “the community tax”, taxes collected from all people who occupy land or buildings and based on an objective assessment of land and property values. The other is from the grants of central government.

The local government has limited powers because Parliament and the central government have a firm control over local authorities, even though the local authorities employ over two million people. It manages local transportation, roads, the police, the fire brigade and the local courts; it makes plans and builds houses; it deals with garbage and protects the environment; it is responsible for education, cultural institutions, civil administration and so on. In law, finance administration, police and other respects, the activities of the local government are supervised and controlled by the corresponding departments of the central government.

However, this national body has no power to dissolve any local council. As there are many devices which make the local councils subject to central control, some people complain that these local bodies are mere agents of the central government. They are not free to develop their own areas for the people at their disposal.

The British government faces two issues connected with local government. One is the problem of whether it will give power to Scotland and Wales. These two areas have not been satisfied with the policies of the central government for a long time; especially when economic crises in Britain developed and petroleum was discovered in the North Sea, their national consciousness was rather high. But the problem has not seemed so great since the referendum in March, 1979 on local parliaments in Scotland and Wales. The other is the problem of Northern Ireland. which can be divided into two. The first is its ownership. The Republic of Ireland and some people in Northern Ireland consider that Northern Ireland is a part of Ireland and will belong to Ireland sooner or later. The second is which of the two religious groups is to hold power : the Roman Catholic or the Protestant Church within Northern Ireland. The British governments have been trying to mitigate the contradiction, maintain social order and restore local government, even by sending in troops, but these measures have so far failed.