What are the responsibilities of the prime minister?

What are the responsibilities of the prime minister?

1. Oversees the operation of the Civil Service and government agencies

   • Relationships with other heads of government.

2. Appoints members of the government.

   • Hiring and firing ministers.
   • The allocation of functions between departments; their creation and abolition.

3. Organisational and efficiency questions

   • Organisation and Staffing of No 10 and the Cabinet Office.
   • Size of Cabinet, workload on ministers and the Civil Service.
   • The creation and merger of government departments and executive agencies.

4. Special personal responsibilities

   • Representing the UK at a range of international meetings and ‘summits.’
   • The maintenance of the special intelligence and nuclear relationships with the US President under the terms of the 1946 Communications Agreement, the 1958 Agreement for Co-operation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes and the 1963 Polaris Sales Agreement.
   • The decision to shoot down a hijacked aircraft or an unidentified civil aircraft which responds neither to radio contact nor the signals of RAF interceptor jets, before it reaches a conurbation or a key target on UK territory (plus the appointment of two or three deputies for this purpose).
   • Authorisation of the use of UK nuclear weapons including the preparation of four ‘last resort’ letters for installation in the inner safes of each Royal Navy Trident submarine and the appointment, on a personal basis rather than the Cabinet’s order of precedence, of the ‘nuclear deputies’ lest the Prime Minister should be out of reach or indisposed during an emergency.
     • The Royal Prerogative (as the de facto chair of the Privy Council) - to declare war (including single-handedly authorising the launch of a nuclear strike), to sign international treaties and to represent the UK at the highest level in international and European negotiations.

5. National security

   • Chairing the weekly meetings of the National Security Council (which also serves, when needed, as a ‘War Cabinet’).
   • Oversight of the production and implementation of the National Security Strategy.
   • Oversight of counter-terrorist policies and arrangements.
   • Overall efficiency of the secret agencies, their operations, budgets and oversight and the intelligence assessments process in the Cabinet Office.
   • Preparation of the ‘War Book’.
   • Contingency planning to cope with threats to essential services and national health from whatever sources.
   • With the Foreign and Defence Secretaries the use of the royal prerogative to deploy Her Majesty’s Forces in action (with Parliament, by convention, being consulted if time allows).
   • With the Foreign Secretary the use of the royal prerogative to ratify or annul treaties, to recognise or derecognise countries (though in certain circumstances, the House of Commons can block treaty ratification under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010).

6. Budget and market-sensitive decisions

   • Determining with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Chief Secretary of the Treasury the detailed contents of the Budget.
   • Interest rates are now set by the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer possess an override under the Bank of England Act 1998 if the ‘public interest’ requires and ‘by extreme economic circumstances’ but this has never been used.

7. Policy strategy and communications

   • Keeper, with the Deputy Prime Minister, of the Coalition’s overall Political Strategy.
   • Oversight of No 10 Communications Strategy and work of the Government Communication Network.
   • Pursuit and promulgation of special overarching policies particularly associated with the Prime Minister eg. the ‘Big Society.’

8. Conduct of cabinet and parliamentary business

   • Calling meetings of Cabinet and its committees.
   • The calling of ‘Political Cabinets’ with no officials present.
   • Deciding issues where Cabinet or Cabinet committees are unable to agree.
   • Deciding, with the Deputy Prime Minister, when the Cabinet is allowed an ‘opt out’ on collective responsibility and subsequent whipping arrangements in Parliament.
   • Granting ministers permission to miss Cabinet meetings or leave the country.
   • Answering questions for 30 minutes on Wednesdays when the House of Commons is sitting on nearly the whole range of government activity.
   • Appearing twice a year to give evidence before the House of Commons Liaision Committee.

9. Appointments

   • Appointment and dismissal of ministers
   • Top appointments to the headships of the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Headquarters.
   • Top appointments to the Home Civil Service; and, in collaboration with the Foreign Secretary to the Diplomatic Service; and, with the Defence Secretary, to the Armed Forces.
   • Top ecclesiastical appointments (though since Gordon Brown’s premierships, the Prime Minister has conveyed the preference of the Church of England’s selectors to the Monarch without interference).
   • Residual academic appointments: the Mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Principalship of King’s College, London; a small number of regius professorships in Oxford and Cambridge. Since the Blair premiership the No 10 practice has been to convey the wishes of the institutions to the Queen without interference.
   • Top public sector appointments and regulators (with some informal parliamentary oversight).
   • Appointments to committees of inquiry and royal commissions.
   • The award of party political honours.
   • Party political appointments to the House of Lords (independent crossbench peers are selected by the House of Lords Appointments Commission and the Prime Minister conveys the recommendations to the Monarch without interference).

10. Constitutional and procedural

    • Managing the relationship between the Government and the Monarch and the Heir to the Throne.
      • Prime Ministers have a weekly audience with the monarch, normally on a Tuesday evening. It is widely held that this traditional meeting of the heads of government and state provides the Prime Minister with the chance to reflect on events, to consult and seek advice on affairs of state with the absolute knowledge of confidentiality.
    • Managing the relationship between the Government and the Opposition on a Privy Counsellor basis.
    • Managing the relationships between UK Central Government and devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
    • Establishing order of precedence in Cabinet.
    • Oversight, with the Cabinet Secretary advising, of the Civil Service Code as enshrined in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010.
    • Decisions, with the Justice Secretary, on whether and when to use the ministerial override on disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

11. The leader of the largest party in the House of Commons is by convention asked by the monarch to be Prime Minister and to form a government.

    • Once appointed by the monarch, the Prime Minister has absolute discretion over who will be invited to become Ministers, what direction the Government and country will take and how the departments of government will be structured.
    • The holder of the office has ultimate power over, and responsibility for, all policies made and implemented by government, seeing all Cabinet papers and being the sole arbiter of disputes between the organs of government.
    • The Prime Minister has the title of First Lord of the Treasury (the name on the door of 10 Downing Street) and Minister for the Civil Service. By convention, the Prime Minister is said to be 'primus inter pares' (first among equals) in Cabinet.