In theUnited Kingdom there are at least sixLords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, serving as acommission for the ancient office ofTreasurer of the Exchequer. The board consists of theFirst Lord of the Treasury, theSecond Lord of the Treasury, and four or more junior lords acting as whips in theHouse of Commons[1] to whom this title is usually applied.
| Lord Commissioners of the Treasury | |
|---|---|
.svg) Coat of Arms used by His Majesty’s Government. | |
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| Appointer | The Monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister |
| Term length | At His Majesty's pleasure |
It is commonly thought that the Lords Commissioners ofHM Treasury serve as commissioners for exercising the office ofLord High Treasurer; however, this is not true. The confusion arises because both offices used to be held by the same individual at the same time.[2][3]
Strictly they are commissioners for exercising the office ofTreasurer of the Exchequer of Great Britain andLord High Treasurer of Ireland[4] (similar to the status of theLords Commissioners of the Admiralty exercising the office ofLord High Admiral until 1964, whenElizabeth II resumed the office). These offices (excluding Lord High Treasurer of Ireland, which went into commission in 1817) have continually been in commission since the resignation in 1714 ofCharles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury, who was appointed to the office by QueenAnne on her deathbed.[5]
Until the 19th century, this commission made most of the economic decisions ofGreat Britain (England, before theAct of Union 1707). However, starting during the 19th century, these positions becamesinecure positions, with the First Lord serving almost invariably asPrime Minister, the Second Lord invariably asChancellor of the Exchequer, and the junior lords serving aswhips inParliament.
As an office in commission, technically all Lords Commissioners of the Treasury are of equal rank, with their ordinal numbers connoting seniority rather than authority over their fellow Lords Commissioners. However, from at least the reign of Queen Anne,de facto power has rested with the top-numbered Lords.
| Portfolio | Name |
|---|---|
| First Lord of the Treasury | SirKeir Starmer |
| Second Lord of the Treasury | Rachel Reeves |
| Junior Lords | Taiwo Owatemi |
| Christian Wakeford | |
| Stephen Morgan | |
| Lilian Greenwood | |
| Gen Kitchen |
Of all the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, typically the only one who actually works inHM Treasury is the Second Lord, as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Since the formation of the office of Prime Minister (including in the case of SirRobert Walpole as the inaugural holder), it has been typical for the incumbent to assume also the position of First Lord of the Treasury.
None of the other lords of the Treasury works for the Treasury in a substantive sense. Rather they are government whips, given nominal positions in the Treasury to enable them to be suitably remunerated for facilitating the function ofHis Majesty's Government. The Commission of the Treasury is suitably flexible for the government's whip operation because it has no fixed number of office-holders. However, theChief Whip is not personally a lord of the Treasury, instead having the similar, but discrete, position ofParliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, which is also a sinecure used to procure paid membership among the members of the Government.
The lords of the Treasury nominally head HM Treasury. They do so by virtue of office and as a matter of law, acting in the office of Treasurer of the Exchequer. The Chancellor does so in reality, consulting the Prime Minister, and delegating parliamentary-level work to the other ministers in the Treasury, none of whom is a Lord of the Treasury, who negotiate and formulate the rest of Treasury business. These junior ministerial positions are, in descending order of rank:
Historically, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was also the First Lord of the Treasury, and usually by extension Prime Minister as well. However, the increasing sophistication of government spending led to the development of the chancellorship into a more refined position of finance minister, and so gradually particularised the office in a way less suitable for headship of the ministry overall. The last Chancellor-Prime Minister wasStanley Baldwin in 1923, and then only very briefly – the last substantive overlap wasWilliam Gladstone in 1880–1882.
A more immediately significant trend though was the rebalancing of the powers of the Houses of Parliament in favour of the lower house. From theGlorious Revolution and onwards it had become increasingly constitutionally untenable for the person setting fiscal policy (i.e. the Chancellor) to reside in theHouse of Lords, a principle which was embedded permanently in theconstitution from 1718 with the resignation ofJames Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope (note this excepts the brief tenures of certainLord Chief Justices, who historically assumed the office of Chancellor of the Exchequerpro tempore during vacancies, and who were often peers). That notwithstanding, the constitutional convention mandating that the Prime Minister reside in the Commons became embedded much later, with a Prime Minister serving without difficulty from the Lords as late as 1902. ThatAlec Douglas-Home, the last to assume the Premiership from the Lords in 1963, felt compelled todisclaim his peerage andtake up a seat in the Commons shows that the convention had, by that time, become well-entrenched.
Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Prime Ministers would continue to be drawn regularly from the upper house. In circumstances where the Prime Minister was a peer it was felt appropriate for the head of the ministry overall to take theprimus inter pares position on the commission as First Lord, even if through constitutional convention he couldn't serve as the Chancellor, who was otherwise First Lord by virtue of his office. The office of First Lord thus became strongly intertwined with the (legally non-existent) Premiership was particularly strong because all Prime Ministers up toRobert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, apart fromWilliam Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, had been First Lords. Accordingly, when the Prime Minister sat in the Lords, the Chancellor assumed the Second Lordship. The constitutional entrenchment of this principle began in 1841 with the appointment of theSecond Peel ministry. Being a viscount,William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (the outgoing Prime Minister) had not been able to be Chancellor as well, but nevertheless assumed the First Lordship pursuant to his premiership in the usual way for premiers from the peerage. However, when SirRobert Peel returned to office for his non-consecutive second term he elected to be First Lord of Treasury, a title he had naturally assumed in his firstministry wherein he had also served as Chancellor. But despite being a Member of Parliament (i.e. not a Lord), Peel did not assume the Chancellorship. Thus the Chancellor,Henry Goulburn, became the first Chancellor to be Second Lord of the Treasury whilst the First Lord was also in the Commons. From that point onwards, the Second Lordship, save on the rare occasion that the Prime Minister holds both10 and11 Downing Street, has been permanently vested in the Chancellor.
Since the evolution of the position, the Prime Minister has also served as First Lord of the Treasury in all but two cases. The initial linkage of the two offices is not surprising, since at the formation of the office the First Lord of the Treasury did indeed take part in running the Treasury, and as First Lord was the most senior person so tasked. Since control of money usually granted most power, it is not surprising that such a person would head the government as a whole. Indeed, even after decades of the emergence of the premiership,William Pitt the Younger proffered that the Prime Minister "ought to be theperson at the head of the finances."[6]
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The two exceptions wereLord Chatham and Lord Salisbury. During Chatham's ministry of 1766–68 he occupied the office ofLord Keeper of the Privy Seal instead. Lord Salisbury became First Lord neither during his first term (1885–1886) nor his third (1895–1902), though he did become First Lord for the first two years of his second ministry (1886–1892).
Since Salisbury, the two roles have become completely concomitant, so much so that the Prime Minister's official residence,10 Downing Street, is in fact the official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury, which title is named on the letter box. Salisbury, as a marquess of vast independent wealth,[7] had no use of an official residence, instead living in his grandertown house at 20 Arlington Street inSt James's, and could instead bestow it as a perquisite to other ministers, along with the First Lordship itself.
Other positions have been linked to the Prime Ministership as well. Continuously since 1968, when the position was created byHarold Wilson, the Prime Minister has also served asMinister for the Civil Service.[8] The adoption of this additional position was directly linked to reforms to HM Treasury, being created when responsibilities for the pay and management of the civil service was transferred from the Treasury to a new Civil Service Department. Since the Prime Minister was a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, prior to the reform he had hadex officio oversight of these portfolios, but it was felt more proper for the civil service to be held outside of a particularised department. Nevertheless, in recognition of the primary authority of the Prime Minister over the Civil Service, it is a constitutional convention that the Ministry would always be held by the Prime Minister.[1][9] Though the Civil Service Department was abolished byMargaret Thatcher in 1982, the title was retained.[10] Whereas the First Lordship of the Treasury has been a complete sinecure for some time, the functions of the Minister for the Civil Service have at times required the Prime Minister to discharge policy and be held accountable for it. For instance, it was occupying this role which saw the Prime Minister sued for her policies inCouncil of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service.
Other offices have historically been linked to the Prime Ministership but are no longer. UntilClement Attlee became Prime Minister, the vast majority of premiers had served as eitherLeader of the House of Commons orLeader of the House of Lords depending on the chamber in which they sat. As the power of the executive swelled, the need to have a legislative-oriented office receded. In 1942 during theSecond World WarWinston Churchill had made himself Minister of Defence, a title Prime Ministers would hold for thirteen years thereafter, but with the decline of defence as an urgent policy area this was abandoned by SirAnthony Eden when he came to office in 1955.Boris Johnson held the position ofMinister for the Union, which he created to display his commitment to strengthening the bond of the four nations of the United Kingdom. This role was retained by his successorLiz Truss.
Accordingly, the First Lord of the Treasury is the title most associated with the Prime Ministership. Seven Prime Ministers saw fit to occupy the post of First Lord of the Treasury only, and held no other subsidiary office. Those Prime Ministers wereCharles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham (1782),William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (1807–1809),David Lloyd George (1916–1922), Sir Anthony Eden (1955–57),Harold Macmillan (1957–1963), SirAlec Douglas-Home (1963–1964), and Harold Wilson (1964–1968, at which point he also became Minister for the Civil Service).