Well, actually, this is more properly "how to appoint a whole ministry" (and some other stuff).
But first, some background. This article is (part of) the culmination of two years of FOIA request making, archive rummaging, and Twitter DMing into just how government ministers are appointed. And it goes without saying that it would not exist without the people mentioned in the acknowledgements.
For a topic of supreme importance, viz. who is the government, there seems to be very little on the Internet about this, and far less material collated together. But we are going to change that.
However, because time is precious - and even after two years of working out the status quo my knowledge of prior practice is most incomplete - this is not a complete history of all this. That may well follow in the future, but for now it's just a snapshot in time.
The Prime Minister
The Prime Minister (who is also First Lord of the Treasury, to which we return below, and always ex officio Minister for the Civil Service [1]) is Her Majesty's principal adviser and minister, and is the conduit through which Her Majesty and Her Government interface.
Amazingly, however, the appointment of the Prime Minister is one of the simplest of all. It is also partially televised (a helicopter following a car), so its probably the only one most people have encountered.
The outgoing Prime Minister has an audience of the Queen [2] where he resigns and advises Her Majesty who to call as his successor. The resignation of a Prime Minister is deemed, though not by virtue of any law, to also be for all other ministers. Although the outgoing Prime Minister recommends a successor to Her Majesty, it is generally accepted that theoretically the Queen has discretion on who to call [3]. The now former Prime Minister departs Buckingham Palace, and for a brief time Her Majesty Herself is essentially running Her government.
The Queen's Private Secretary then summons the new Prime Minister to an audience. After arriving, Her Majesty offers the job, for want of a better phrase, to him, and he is said to have "kissed hands". Not that any hand kissing is required these days [5]. After a further courtesy meeting with the new Prime Minister's spouse, they depart. Customarily, the new Prime Minister then makes an address from outside Downing Street opening with words to the effect of "Her Majesty the Queen has asked me to form a government in Her name, and I have accepted".
And that's it. No paperwork, no proclamations. Just a simple entry in the Court Circular [6], viz.
Buckingham Palace
24th July, 2019
The Rt Hon Theresa May MP had an audience of The Queen this afternoon and tendered her resignation as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, which Her Majesty was graciously pleased to accept. Mr Philip May was also received by The Queen.
Her Majesty received in audience the Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP and requested him to form a new Administration. The Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP accepted The Queen’s offer and kissed hands upon his appointment as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury.Although in a way, the addition of "First Lord of the Treasury" there is a bit misleading, as we will discover later.
There of course remains the theoretical possibility that Her Majesty could decline to "graciously accept" Her Prime Minister's resignation, based on the old constitutional theory that ministerial office is both an honour and a duty. Notice also that the Palace prefer "Administration" to either ministry or government, which is arguably constitutionally proper since in the gap between Prime Ministers Her Majesty's Government continues, but the administration of it have demitted office.
[C3] Addendum: it occurs to me that the preceding paragraph doesn't quite say what I intended for it to say. What I meant was that by the Prime Minister's resignation he, and thus the leadership of the administration, has ceased to hold office, and by virtue of the same the entire ministry is deemed to have resigned but not that individual ministers or secretaries cease to exercise their offices. As some of the warrants and patents make clear, most are relieved of their office by being displaced by their successors.
Secretaries of State
The vast majority [7] of the senior government ministers hold the office normally known as Secretary of State. Taking the Home Secretary as an example — since it is technically the senior one — this is a contraction of Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department [8].
The historical origins of these offices are complicated, but this is an attempt at a one paragraph summary. The office of King's Secretary [9] became divided into two, one leading the Northern Department and one leading the Southern Department in ca. 1688 [10]. After the Act of Union in 1707, a third Secretary of State for Scotland was appointed for a while until this abated in 1742. In 1768 a Secretary of State with responsibility for colonial matters were appointed. But in 1782 the Home Office and the Foreign Office were born, and the colonial secretary merged with the Home Secretary.
Thereafter the number of Secretaries of State very slowly increased so that by 1858 there were five: the Home, Foreign, Colonial, War, and India Secretaries. Things remained somewhat stable, albeit with some changes related to the creation of the Ministry of Defence, until the 1960s where the modern practice of heading almost all departments with a Secretary of State began.
It appears to be an open question whether or not there is one office of Principal Secretary of State, which multiple occupants share, or multiple distinct offices, or some hybrid of the two. No doubt making things simultaneously more and less confusing, the Interpretation Act 1978 provides that
“Secretary of State” means one of Her Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State.Anyway, how are Secretaries of State appointed. It involves seals, and only seals [11]. Specifically, at a meeting of the Privy Council, Her Majesty will hand the new Secretary of State his seals of office. These seem (thanks to Ned Donovan's article, which I thoroughly recommend) to comprise three, viz. the signet, the lesser seal, and the cachet. Quoting from Ned, who does this better than I could
For instance, the Lesser Seal is only used by the Home Office, and only put on certain documents, while the Cachet is only used when the Queen writes a letter to a foreign head of state.Although in effect a Secretary of State is appointed from the moment the Prime Minister says they are, it is this formal act of Her Majesty handing them their seals that elevates them from "person who will be a Secretary" to "Secretary". It is then recorded in the Privy Council books like this [12]
and in the Court Circular like this [13]
The following took the Oath of Office or made affirmation, kissed hands upon appointment and received the Seals of Office: [...] Ben Wallace MP (as Secretary of State for Defence) [...]and it totally escapes me why the Privy Council records do not mention the seals but the Circular does.
The oath referred to in the Privy Council record is the Official Oath, as defined in section 3 of the Promissory Oaths Act 1868 as
“I, , do swear that I will well and truly serve Her Majesty Queen Victoria [14] in the office of So help me God.”The exact list of persons required to take that oath on appointment is in the Schedule to that Act, and as you will notice does not comprise every minister (but does include some surprising ones, like the Earl Marshal and the Lord Clerk Register).
And that's it. It appears that a new Home Secretary doesn't even get a certificate.
It seems, (thanks to Jason Loch for noticing this) that historically Secretaries of State would have an audience of Her Majesty to return their seals on demitting office, but that this mysteriously stopped at some point in the 2000s.
The Lord High Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain is an office of considerable ancienty, and some argue it predates in form if not substance the Norman Conquest [15]. As the second Great Officer of State [16] the Lord Chancellor formally outranks the Prime Minister, and in the Order of Precedence sits between the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Archbishop of York [17]. The Prime Minister's precedence we will return to below (I'm really saving this one up).
Although over time the office accreted considerable duties - before reforms in the 2000s he was concurrently the Speaker of the House of Lords, the head of the judiciary, and a minister responsible for all sorts of constitutional matters [18] - the core, principal, duty of the office was and is the custody and control of the Great Seal of the Realm [19].
That's this thing [20]
Or, at least, it was this thing until the seal matrix wore out and a new one was produced. There do not appear to be any freely licensed images of the new design, however, so you will have to visit the engraver's website yourself. Personally I think the horseback version is better.
And, indeed, as in former times it is delivery of the Great Seal to the new Lord Chancellor that formally appoints him to office. He must also take the Official Oath, and before the reforms in 2005 the Judicial Oath, which is defined at section 4 of the Promissory Oaths Act 1868 as
I, , do swear that I will well and truly serve our Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria in the office of , and I will do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or illwill. So help me God.Now, the Lord Chancellor instead has a bespoke oath (and which to my mind is the singular most uninspiring oath contained in any British enactment), provided by section 6A of the Act as
I, , do swear that in the office of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain I will respect the rule of law, defend the independence of the judiciary and discharge my duty to ensure the provision of resources for the efficient and effective support of the courts for which I am responsible. So help me God.Which, without a statutory basis, seems to be taken twice. Once in the Privy Council meeting where he is given the Great Seal, and again at the Royal Courts of Justice before the Lord Chief Justice, Master of the Rolls, the Attorney-General, and so on.
The modern practice is that the Lord Chancellor is also Secretary of State for Justice, and consequently he would need to take the Official Oath for that too, and receive the usual set of secretarial seals. Seals all the way down!
This is recorded in the Privy Council records as
The Rt. Hon. David Gauke MP had an audience of The Queen this afternoon and delivered up the Great Seal and took leave upon relinquishing his appointment as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice.in a manner similar to how Secretaries of State would return their seals in the past.
The Lord Privy Seal
Like the Lord High Chancellor, the Lord Privy Seal is also an office of great ancienty (dating from 1307, before which the Privy Seal was held by the Controller of the Wardrobe [21]). However, unlike the Lord Chancellor, and somewhat unique amongst the other sinecure posts, the Lord Privy Seal nowadays has no duties whatsoever. (Actually this isn't quite true, see below)All need for things to be sealed with the Privy Seal was abolished by the Great Seal Act 1884 [22] and consequently the office ceased to have any duties. Nonetheless, a Privy Seal matrix still exists (it appears, though I don't have a photo handy, to be the final one made for Victoria) and it is by delivery of this to them that a Lord Privy Seal is appointed. They also take the Official Oath.
Recorded in the Privy Council records thusly
The Baroness Evans of Bowes Park took the Oath of Office as Lord Privy Seal, kissed hands upon her appointment and received the Privy Seal.Today the Lord Privy Seal is invariably the leader of one of the two Houses of Parliament.
[C1] Addendum: Rich Greenhill correctly points out that the Lord Privy Seal actually does have some exceptionally minor duties. For one she is chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Chevening Estate by virtue of schedule 1 of the Chevening Estate Act 1987 [22A]. In addition, by S.I. 2007 No. 2914 she was incorporated as a corporation sole and had various equality duties transferred to her, but by S.I. 2010 No. 1839 these were transferred to the Secretary of State. This, however, easily remains the most sinecure of the sinecure offices.
The Lord President of the Council
Unlike the previous two Great Officers of State, the office of Lord President of the Council is reasonably young - being created in only 1530 for Charles Brandon, the 1st Duke of Suffolk. The sole responsibility attached to this office now [23] is to preside at meetings of the Privy Council. And indeed, this then explains its bespoke appointment method: Her Majesty simply declares that so-and-so is Lord President and, having taken the Official Oath, they become it, viz.
and in the Court Circular as
The Queen declared in Council the Rt. Hon. Jacob Rees-Mogg MP Lord President of the Council, who was sworn and kissed hands on his appointment.Because the Lord President needs to preside at the rest of the Privy Council meeting, this appointment is actually the first one made. Before that, some other minister (in 2019 it was Lady Evans, the continuing Lord Privy Seal) presides as an Acting Lord President.
The Lord President is usually, but not invariably [24] leader of one of the two Houses of Parliament.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Another curious sinecure, with various vestigial responsibilities related to the Duchy of Lancaster (or in other words, those parts of Her Majesty's estate which are not the responsibility of the Crown Estate).
Even more curiously, the Chancellor of the Duchy is not appointed at a Privy Council meeting but immediately after it, so in 2019 we see in the Court Circular
After the Council the Rt. Hon. Michael Gove MP had an audience of The Queen, was sworn Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, kissed hands upon his appointment and received from Her Majesty the Seals of Office.The Official Oath being once again required by the Promissory Oaths Act 1868. To the best of my considerable digging, other than his seals, a Chancellor of the Duchy receives no other document on appointment. And I've done a lot of digging (but if someone finds a Patent or something to go with this, do let me know and I will update!)
These days, the office of Chancellor of the Duchy is usually used as a minister without portfolio type role.
The Chancellor and Under-Treasurer of Her Majesty's Exchequer
Commonly called the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and now invariably combined with the office of Second Lord of the Treasury (wait for it!). Historically, Jason Loch tells me, there were Letters Patent appointing this office, but this practice seems to have quietly ceased sometime around the end of the 20th century. The Promissory Oaths Act 1868 requires the Official Oath to be taken though, and this is done, as usual, at a meeting of the Privy Council, viz.
This is another office of considerable vintage, dating from about 1221, but unlike the Great Officers of State, it never assumed the importance it now has in government until the time of Pitt the Younger or so. It was, in effect, originally responsible for the Crown's income, whereas the Lord High Treasurer was responsible for outgoings. A gross simplification but it follows the gist of the arrangements.
The Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury
The Great Officer of State who ranks immediately after the Lord High Chancellor would be the Lord High Treasurer. However, this office [25] is now invariably in Commission [26]. As we alluded to earlier, the Prime Minister is also First Lord of the Treasury, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the Second Lord. They are joined by a number of Government whips as Junior Lords.The reason for this almost arcane arrangement is to do with salaries. Schedule 1 to the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975 provides a salary to "The Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury" (so, in effect, it is via the second component that he draws his salary), to the Chancellor of the Exchequer explicitly, and to the Junior Lords.
Unlike the previously discussed offices, this one comes with some paperwork, in the form of this very long sentence printed on nice paper [27]
- name the new people
- say they replace the old people
- declare that all the stuff that people who are Treasury Commissioners in the past have had or have done, they likewise have or have to do
- declare they can continue things started but not finished by the previous Commissioners
- require the rest of Her Majesty's Government to pay attention to the acts of the new Commissioners
- and declare that any action of the Commission is ok if two or more of them agree (this is important, and will crop up again in the Paymaster-General section next, of all places!)
The "two people" requirement is essentially derived from the Treasury Instruments (Signature) Act 1849 [28] which provided that henceforth notwithstanding any law or usage to the contrary only two signature are needed. In practice it is invariably the government whips, not the Prime Minister and Chancellor, who sign.
On the bottom left is a wafer Great Seal (wafers versus pendant seals is a topic for another day), and being as these are really Letters Patent, Her Majesty doesn't actually sign the Commission but, as hinted by the subscription "By Warrant under the Queen's Sign Manual" signs a warrant authorising the Patent to be sealed. Contrast that with the warrants of appointment in later sections below.
Astute readers will notice the date on that Commission above is not the same date as Johnson became Prime Minister nor the day after when he appointed his ministry. The practice seems to be for the Commission to issue some weeks or months later. Being a very unusual person, I have checked every Statutory Instrument made by HM Treasury since 2002 and in every case at the change of a ministry, until the new Commission is issued, the previous junior Lords Commissioners sign everything.
One other curio is that, even when some Lords Commissioners continue, the entire Commission is re-issued, cf. these two from Theresa May's time
The Rt. Hon. Boris Johnson MP was sworn First Lord of the Treasury.
Her Majesty's Paymaster-General
The office of Paymaster-General was created in 1836 out of the merger of four existing offices, all bar one of which dated from ca. the 17th century
- the Paymaster of His Majesty's Forces (1661)
- the Paymaster of the Royal Hospital Chelsea (1681)
- the Treasurer of the Ordinance (1670)
- the Treasurer of the Navy (1546)
To which were later added the Paymaster of Exchequer Bills and the Paymaster of the Civil Service. In effect, the Paymaster-General became the government's banker, responsible for the flows of money around the Civil Service, the Forces, and related institutions.
More modern reforms to the office have caused all the banking responsibilities to be moved elsewhere and now only residual duties remain in what is essentially another sinecure post. It is now almost invariably part of the Cabinet Office and a sort of "general" minister.
It is required by the Paymaster General Act 1838 [29] that a Paymaster-General be appointed by a Royal Warrant countersigned by Treasury. This means, as noted above, two Treasury Lords need to sign it. But as we see here in the Warrant appointing Oliver Dowden the Warrant has instead been incorrectly signed by Robert Buckland, the Lord Chancellor [30]
Some digging by me and others indicates this erroneous state of affairs has persisted for some considerable time, though the Privy Council Office assure me it wont happen again. Whether this affects the validity of the appointment is one for the lawyers (but if you were to ask me...). What is mildly amusing is that the Act which imposes the requirement is cited in the first paragraph of the warrant itself!
Here we see that Her Majesty has signed the warrant Herself, this not being a Patent.
The Paymaster-General is required to take the Official Oath, but this is not administered at a Privy Council meeting.
The President of the Board of Trade
The full title of the Board of which this minister is head of is "The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of all matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations". First created in a vaguely comparable form by Cromwell, William III then created a sort of similar body, which ultimately fell apart in the 18th century, before Pitt the Younger recreated it as a committee of the Privy Council, which it remains to this day.However, essentially all the duties and powers of the Board have been transferred to the Secretaries of State [31], so it is now simply an additional title of the Secretary of State for International Trade (and before 2017, Business, and even earlier Trade and Industry, etc.). However, in earlier times, it was the President who was responsible for almost all economic regulation in the United Kingdom, as well as having an array of colonial duties. So, for example, it was the Board of Trade which regulated railways, merchant shipping, banking, certain forms of import licenses, and even at one time quarantines and the like.
Being a Privy Council committee the President is, obviously enough, appointed by Order-in-Council.
The Law Officers of the Crown
These comprise
- Her Majesty's Attorney-General for England and Wales
- Her Majesty's Solicitor-General for England and Wales
- Her Majesty's Advocate-General for Scotland
- Her Majesty's Advocate-General for Northern Ireland
The first two are very old offices. There has been an Attorney-General since at least 1277 and a Solicitor-General since at least the 15th century. The second two are mere toddlers in comparison, being created in 1999 (by the Scotland Act 1998) and 2010 (when the relevant provisions of the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002 came into effect). While the Advocate-General for Scotland is a separate office, by section 27 of the 2002 Act, the Attorney-General is ex officio Advocate-General for Northern Ireland [32].
Not discussed here due the offices not being ministerial, but Her Majesty as Duke of Lancaster, His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales as Duke of Cornwall are all entitled to Attorneys-General too, as was Her Majesty the Queen Mother in Her lifetime.
All four offices essentially act as the principal legal advisers to Her Majesty's Government regarding the law in the relevant jurisdiction. In addition, the Attorney-General is ex officio head of the Bar of England and Wales, and she and the Solicitor-General are invariably made Queen's Counsel on appointment if not already [33]. The Attorney-General also has responsibility for giving consent to prosecute in certain special cases, and has duties (derived from the Crown's role as parens patriae) relating to charities and for prosecuting contempts of court.
Before the Law Officers Act 1997, the Solicitor-General was not actually empowered to act in place of the Attorney-General. By virtue of that Act though, any action of the Solicitor-General is taken to be one of the Attorney-General.
Similar to many judges, the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General are appointed by Letters Patent pursuant to an "Immediate Warrant" - a matter for another BenBlog I suspect. But that is the cause of the subscription here being "By the Queen Herself" unlike the Treasorial one above.
Anyway, the Attorney-General's Letters Patent [34] [C6]
And the Solicitor-General's
The phrase "one of Our Counsel learned in the law" means a Queen's Counsel (which as noted above, all Attorneys-General ultimately are or will be), who are formally "Her Majesty's Counsel learned in the law". Notice also how, like the Treasury Commissions, the former office holder is formally displaced by the new one.
Neither the Attorney- nor Solicitor-General is required to take the Official Oath, so this Patent is entirely sufficient for them to enter into their offices (even if Cox was nominally appointed in July but only actually appointed in August, and Michael Ellis had to wait until September!)
And now a confession: well more a criticism of the useless Cabinet Office. The Office of the Advocate-General for Scotland claim they do not hold copies of their minister's patent but that the Cabinet Office do. And have the Cabinet Office deigned to actually reply to this? No.
If and when they do, I shall update this post accordingly.
The Advocate-General for Northern Ireland has no Patent, it being provided legislatively that the Attorney-General is so.
Her Majesty's Household
The remaining government ministers, with the exception of the "junior" minister which we will treat of momentarily, are members of Her Majesty's Household and today [35] comprise
- The Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household
- The Comptroller of Her Majesty's Household
- The Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household
- The Captain of Her Majesty's Body Guard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms [36]
- The Captain of The Queen's Body Guard of the Yeomen of the Guard
- The Lords-in-Waiting [37]
The first three serve as the three main Deputy Chief Whips in the House of Commons (or cognate offices, the exact nomenclature varies from government to government, but always in that order) but are not totally sinecures. At least the Comptroller seems to have duties at Garden Parties (or so they tell me), and the Vice-Chamberlain writes a report on each day's Parliamentary proceedings for Her Majesty's Red Box, and is Her Majesty's hostage whenever she goes in State to the Palace of Westminster.
One assumes the two Captains, who are invariably the Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip in the Lords, can if desired actually lead their bodyguards on state occaisions. Lords-in-Waiting do sometimes has residual duties like meeting foreign dignitaries at airports [38].
[C2] Addendum: it has been confirmed to me that Lord Courtdown, at least, led the Yeoman-of-the-Guard at State Opening in October 2019, so clearly this can still happen.
[C2] Addendum: it has been confirmed to me that Lord Courtdown, at least, led the Yeoman-of-the-Guard at State Opening in October 2019, so clearly this can still happen.
I am assured that at least some of these offices are appointed by warrants, but the Cabinet Office deny all knowledge of this. As usual.
The Rest
The overwhelming majority of Ministers of the Crown are not actually included in the above sections though. These are the multitude of Ministers of State, Parliamentary [39] Under-Secretaries of State, and equivalent roles. It even includes a small number of ministers who are usually (but not invariably) of Cabinet rank, viz. the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (who is the Chief Whip, and isn't a Treasury minister), the Chief Secretary to the Treasury (who is a Treasury minister, but not actually able to sign anything), and any Ministers without Portfolio (who are, well, intentionally nothing).
These, and to an extent the government as a whole, are formally appointed when the Prime Minister submits his advice to Her Majesty on the composition of the government. This actually quite wonderful document looks like this (and I am indebted to Jason Loch for obtaining this!)
Her Majesty's approval is noted by the initials ER on the top right.
Some observations. One, I never knew until about seven minutes ago that the Secretary of State for Justice is technically unpaid (but it makes sense, he draws his salary as Lord High Chancellor). It is also curious, until one reads the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975, that the "non-sinecure" government whips are listed.
And that, broadly, concludes the process by which Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom is formed. A few things have been intentionally omitted. For one, I am going to pretend that Parliamentary Private Secretaries don't exist because I don't like them.
I have also omitted how machinery of government changes are carried out as being well outwith the scope of this blog.
Bonus: Non-Ministerial Departments and Quangos
Now, on the way to discovering all of the above I acquired a collection of warrants and patents from various other public bodies. Originally this was a scheme to look for patterns (and to try and understand who approves and seals what), and I will return to that some day. For now, lets discuss them here since just because a public body is not led by one of Her Majesty's Ministers doesn't mean it is an unimportant entity.
The Crown Estate Commissioners
Historically, the King was responsible for funding the entirety of His Government, which he had to do from a combination of the 'customary' [40] revenues of the Crown and any subsidies voted by Parliament. As government increased in size and scope this naturally became troublesome. So, in 1760, the new King George III surrendered his hereditary revenues (except the Duchy of Lancaster, which was run by its Chancellor we discussed above, and the Duchy of Cornwall for his heir) to Parliament in exchange for an annuity, and the Civil List was born.Every reign since the new monarch of the day has likewise surrendered their hereditary revenues. Although the Civil List as a concept was abolished and replaced with the Sovereign Grant in 2011 [41], the underlying idea is the same. The surrender is effected by section 1(1) of the Civil List Act 1953, which reads
(1) Subject to subsection (2) below, the hereditary revenues which were by section one of the Civil List Act 1937 [42] directed to be carried to and made part of the Consolidated Fund shall, while section 1 of the Sovereign Grant Act 2011 is in force, be paid into the Exchequer and be made part of the Consolidated Fund.The land and so on forming part of this (as opposed to duties of customs and the like) is then managed pursuant to the Crown Estate Act 1961 [43] which at paragraph 1 of the first Schedule thereto provides, inter alia
(1) There shall be such number of commissioners, not exceeding eight, as Her Majesty may from time to time determine.
(2) One of them shall be appointed as first Crown Estate Commissioner and another may, if Her Majesty sees fit, be appointed as second Crown Estate Commissioner.
(4) The commissioners shall be appointed by Her Majesty, by warrant under the Royal Sign Manual.And here are some warrants. First, naturally, is the First Crown Estate Commissioner [C7]
Then the Second Crown Estate Commissioner
The "ordinary" Commissioner warrants look similar. If anyone is curious ask, I have a collection...
Now, I know not why the position of the seal and the exact design of the warrant seems to vary a bit (nor precisely what that blue seal even is), but when someone inevitably pings me after this is published to say "aha, it is this" I shall add it here. Do need to leave some exercises for the reader!
As before, these being Royal Warrants not Letters Patent, they are signed by Her Majesty. And similarly, while Patents tend to explicitly displace the previous incumbent of the office, these generally simply appoint a new person to it. Also, did you spot the counter-signatures of the Lord Chancellors at the bottom?
The Forestry Commission
Before devolution, and therefore the creation of a Scottish Forestry Commission (which I believe now has another name), the Forestry Commission was the largest landowner in the United Kingdom. Established in 1919 [44] it has managed forests in England and Wales ever since. The principal legislation underpinning it was then consolidated and re-enacted (and has been subsequently amended a lot) by the Forestry Act 1967, which at section 2 provides that(1) The Commissioners shall consist of a chairman and not more than ten other members appointed by Her Majesty by warrant under the sign manual to be Forestry Commissioners.The Forestry Commission should be commended for quite possibly the fastest FOIA response I have ever seen, at less than two hours to supply copies of the Royal Warrants appointing all eight current Commissioners. The Chairman and one other by way of example are reproduced here.
Lest I be accused of making this blog over prolix, there is a reason for including these apparently identical things. There is no statute or otherwise anywhere saying what a Royal Warrant of appointment should include. Consequently, the only way to find out is to acquire a bundle and compare them.
And here we begin to see a general pattern: the warrants almost invariably have three parts
- the salutation
- a recital of what power or powers that they are made under
- the actual appointment of the officeholder, with his terms and conditions (if any)
Astute readers will notice that the Paymaster-General's warrant omits (1), and it is entirely unclear why.
The Bank of England
The current constitution of the Bank of England is broadly (but, because it would be too easy otherwise, not entirely) given by the Bank of England Act 1998. However, the actual legal existence of the Bank itself is provided for by section XIX of the Bank of England Act 1684 [45]. There is also this gorgeous Royal Charter dated the same year, which the Bank have been very nice and put online for us to gaze in wonder at (I'll stop swooning now)
Somewhere in there I'm sure is the provision on how appointments were originally made. Nonetheless the 1998 Act now provides at section 1 for the Court of Directors to be "appointed by Her Majesty", viz.
(1) There shall continue to be a court of directors of the Bank.
(2) The court shall consist of the following directors appointed by Her Majesty—Now, initially this vexed me since it didn't specify how Her Majesty was to make the appointments. So I asked the Bank for copies of them. Which they refused as being exempt from disclosure as "communications with the Sovereign" [46]. Well after a brief tussle, described by the Secretary of the Bank as me citing "an array of precedents and authorities" [47] I have some of them.
(a) a Governor,
(b) a Deputy Governor for financial stability,
(ba) a Deputy Governor for markets and banking,
(c) a Deputy Governor for monetary policy,
(d) a Deputy Governor for prudential regulation, and
(e) not more than 9 non-executive directors.
I say some because Mark Carney's warrant as Governor has gone AWOL...
Anyway, an example of a Royal Warrant (it transpires "appointed by Her Majesty" means, implicitly, by warrant — at least in England) appointing a Deputy Governor, specifically Benjamin Broadbent as Deputy Governor for Monetary Policy_
Now, unlike the Crown Estate Commissioners and Forestry Commissioners, it seems that multiple members of the Court of Directors can be appointed in one warrant, cf. here where two members are appointed
Though I wonder if anything of great consequence, aside from saving some paper and wafer seals, turns on all that.
The Solicitor for the Affairs of Her Majesty's Treasury
I regret that this section is nothing short of confusing - indeed even the Government Legal Department themselves (which is the modern name of the Treasury Solicitor's Department [48]) were rather confused for a bit.
Her Majesty's Government's solicitor (as opposed to its attorney, etc.) is the pithily named "Solicitor for the Affairs of Her Majesty's Treasury". The history of this office is ... vexing. We will ignore the dance that seemed to occur in the late 18th and early 19th century where the two extant Treasury Solicitors were condensed into one because life is too short, and instead first look at the Treasury Solicitor Act 1876 [49].
At section 1, that Act provides for the Treasury Solicitor to be a corporation sole, viz.
The person for the time being holding the office of Solicitor for the affairs of Her Majesty’s Treasury (in this Act referred to as the Treasury Solicitor) shall be a corporation sole by name of the Solicitor for the affairs of Her Majesty’s Treasury, and by that name shall have perpetual succession, with a capacity to acquire and hold in that name lands, Government securities, shares in any public company, securities for money, and real and personal property of every description, to sue and be sued, to execute deeds, using an official seal, to make leases, to enter into engagements binding on himself and his successors in office, and to do all other acts necessary or expedient to be done in the execution of the duties of his office.
It appears that no actual instrument appoints each instant Treasury Solicitor, or at least the GLD couldn't find one. The words "shares in any public company" are more apposite than they first appear: it is the Treasury Solicitor who often formally owns nationalised companies, for example after the enactment of the Banking (Special Provisions) Act 2008 it was the Treasury Solicitor who came to own the Northern Rock plc.
Section 2 of the same Act grants to the Treasury Solicitor Her Majesty's bona vacantia and escheat rights (except in right of the Duchy of Lancaster) supposedly by Royal Warrant, but the GLD failed to find any evidence of it. Though it undoubtedly exists somewhere, probably in the National Archives at Kew.
However, this is not the sole office the Treasury Solicitor occupies. And even older office of Queen's Proctor (or Her Majesty's Procurator General) became annexed to it in 1876. There has been a Queen's Proctor since at least 1660, but in reality it almost certainly predates that date in some form.
Avoiding for now any discussion of the equally odd Admiralty Advocate (as to which, future BenBlog time, alas), the Queen's Proctor is Her Majesty's advocate in the ecclesiastical courts. In addition, he has a residual duty to intervene in divorce cases as provided for in section 8 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 [50]
This is not some curio, for it is as Queen's Proctor and Her Majesty's Procurator-General that the Treasury Solicitor has a Royal Warrant. This is an unusually voluminous warrant by the standards of these things, almost certainly an artefact of the antiquity of this quirky but important office.
The basic structure little different to usual, but after the salutation we find an unusual recital that the office of Proctor is void. Then we see a declaration that the new appointee is suitable for the role (quite why this says "Free Grace" rather than "Especial Grace" is an open question). In that same long paragraph we see how the Proctor has authority to represent the Queen in all matters "Matrimonial, Maritime, Foreign, Civil and Ecclesiastical", I think "Civil" here means "Civilian" as opposed to "Common Law"; there is also a later reference to prize cases, which equally are civilian causes. And then at the end we see the monition, normally seen in Sign Manual warrants, that this is a "sufficient warrant". That incomprehensible signature at the bottom seems to be Chris Grayling's.
Still following? Who knew that the otherwise anodyne Government Legal Department was so constitutionally exciting?
The Registrar-General
[C4] The General Register Office, and the office of Registrar-General, was first created by the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1836. Section 1 of the Registration Services Act 1953 [50A] now provides that
(1) Her Majesty may from time to time under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom appoint a Registrar General for England and Wales, and any person so appointed shall exercise the powers and perform the duties conferred or imposed by or under any enactment on the Registrar General, whether described by that title alone or with any additional description, and shall hold office during Her Majesty’s pleasure.This would, of course, leave open the question as to what actually is the "instrument" under the Great Seal, but it is quite obvious it would be Letters Patent. And, indeed, that is what it is [50B]
All fairly standard, though it does note the fact that the office was void by resignation rather than displacing the extant official. But nothing other than it being a curious observation turns on that.
Chairman of the Statistics Board
[C5] Official statistics in the United Kingdom have a complicated history (after all, that makes it easier to hide them after the damned lies!). The modern arrangement is that there is a Statistics Board (which publicly calls itself the UK Statistics Authority) to "regulate" matters, with the slightly older Office of National Statistics as part of it. The ONS itself was formed from the merger of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys and the Central Statistical Office in 1996 (I think).
Of those two antecedent offices, the OPCS was itself formed from the merger of the General Register Office (which has since, as noted above, departed this ensemble with its Registrar-General and found a new home in Her Majesty's Passport Office) and the Government Social Survey Department. It is by virtue of the vestiges of this merger that the ONS is still responsible for the census.
The CSO, in comparison, was born out of the wartime need for reliable statistics, and eventually became a key part of the Government Statistical Service. I wonder if the ONS publishes statistics on how much time has been spent changing the machinery of government statistics?
Anyway, in 2007 the modern arrangements were created by Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. Section 3 of which provides
(1) The Board is to consist of executive and non-executive members.
(2) The non-executive members are to be—
(a) the chairman, appointed by Her Majesty, and
(b) at least five other persons appointed by the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
It is that Chairman, appointed by Her Majesty, who has essentially replaced the Registrar-General as the leader of all government statistics, and it his Royal Warrant (recall that an unspecified power of appointment is invariably by Royal Warrant, whereas the Registrar-General, being required to be appointed under the Great Seal was by Letters Patent).
Now, that intriguing Gaelic reference piqued my interest. Authority for it is given by section 1 of the 2007 Act, viz.
(1)There is to be a body corporate to be known as the Statistics Board (in this Part called “the Board”).
(2)In Gaelic the Board is to be known as Am Bòrd an Staitistig.
(3)In Welsh the Board is to be known as Y Bwrdd Ystadegau.
I believe, although my search was not entirely exhaustive, that this means the UKSA is the only UK-wide public body with an official Gaelic name.
The National Archives
The person who is "Chief Executive" of the National Archives actually holds, concurrently, six offices, viz.
- Keeper of Public Records
- An (but see below) Historical Manuscripts Commissioner
- Queen's Printer of Acts of Parliament
- Queen's Printer for Scotland
- Government Printer for Northern Ireland
- Controller of Her Majesty's Stationary Office
but by virtue of a veritable panoply of means. Starting with Keeper of Public Records (and ignoring for now the historical position of the Master of the Rolls [51] in this), we turn to section 2 of the Public Records Act 1958 [52], where we see this
The Secretary of State may appoint a Keeper of Public Records to take charge under his direction of the Public Record Office and of the records therein and may, with the concurrence of the Treasury as to numbers and conditions of service, appoint such other persons to serve in the Public Record Office as he may think fit.Experience suggests that a power of the Secretary of State (or the Lord Chancellor as the original Act provided) to appoint someone means that the instrument in question is a mere letter. But this initial office is important because the others (mostly) flow from it.
Turning next to the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Established in 1869 as a multi-member Commission, after various revisions and tweaks, in 2003 it was changed so that the Keeper was the sole Commissioner. The Commission's job is to find and identify documents of national interest which are in private hands and make arrangements for their preservation.
As Queen's Printer of Acts of Parliament, we find the Keeper has a Patent, reproduced here.
This office is responsible for ensuring that Acts of Parliament (and, by virtue of various other enactments, other English and United Kingdom legislation) is published; and copies of legislation published under his authority is acceptable in court. One intriguing curio is how those Letters Patent also grant the Keeper control of Crown Copyright.
Section 92(5) of the Scotland Act provides that the Queen's Printer of Acts of Parliament shall be ex officio Queen's Printer for Scotland.
The office of Government Printer for Northern Ireland is appointed by order of the Executive Office, as found in the Belfast Gazette.
Finally, the appointment of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationary Office is made by the Secretary of State and therefore, like the Keeper's original appointment, has no substantial paperwork.
This concludes the "Her Majesty's Government" part of this exceptionally long blog. I intend to discuss further public bodies in the future as I extract their patents and warrants from them, for example Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.
Second Bonus: Devolved Governments
But the United Kingdom no longer has only one "government". So how do the new devolved administrations approach the process of forming a government? (This is mostly a vehicle to show off the columinar bilingual Welsh patents and the gorgeous scrivened Scottish one)
The Welsh Ministers
In section 46 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 it is provided, inter alia that
(1) The First Minister is to be appointed by Her Majesty after nomination in accordance with section 47.Another example of an Act saying Her Majesty can appoint someone without saying how.
As it transpires this is by Royal Warrant (which one should start to see is the normal way these things are done). Unusual to the Welsh context, the warrant is bilingual, with English text in one column and Welsh text in another. We also notice that it recites the requirement under section 47 of the Act that the Assembly elect a First Minister, and that it has done so, in addition to just reciting the enabling power.
On the bottom left, just about intelligible if one squints a lot, is what I initially thought was the Welsh Seal, but I am no longer convinced about this, and opposite it is the counter-signature of David Gauke, the then Lord Chancellor, as usual.
Section 48 of the Act then provides, again inter alia, that
(1) The First Minister may, with the approval of Her Majesty, appoint Welsh Ministers from among the Assembly members.The Welsh Government have confirmed that this appointment, a bit like junior ministers in HM Government, does not come with any formal paperwork or warrants.
The Counsel-General for Wales
However, that leaves the Welsh equivalent of the Attorney-General: The Counsel-General for Wales. Section 49 of the Act then provides that(1) The Counsel General is to be appointed by Her Majesty on the recommendation of the First Minister.By now the difference in wording between sections 49 and 48, and the similarities between 49 and 46, should be obvious, and, yes, the Counsel-General is appointed by warrant too!
I have no real idea why Jeremy Miles was appointed in 2017, then reappointed in the middle of 2019. Nor do I know why the columns are the opposite way around — and my only theory as to why the seal is suddenly at the top is due to exigencies of space.
But, one notices the same structure as the First Minister's warrant, overall, which is unsurprising.
The Scottish Ministers
Now up North. For some reason that remains utterly elusive, when Nicola Sturgeon became First Minister in 2014 she was, like in Wales appointed by Royal Warrant (see mid-way down here). However, in 2016, a set of Letters Patent commissioning her as First Minister were sealed with the very prolixly named "seal appointed by the Treaty of Union to be kept and made use of in place of the Great Seal of Scotland". They are, however, quite pretty being scrivened and with a pendant seal [53].
Rich Greenhill worked out for me that "SDN" is a contraction of "Serenissimæ Dominæ Nostræ", so the full Latin subscription is
Per Signaturam Manu Serenissimæ Dominæ Nostræ Reginæ Supra Scriptamwhich I would translate (modulo my legendary inability to decline nouns correctly) as
By the Sign Manual of Our Serene Lady the Queen Superscribedwhich I take to be the Scottish equivalent of "By Warrant under the Queen's Sign Manual".
Aside from minor differences of appearance, this follows the same essential idea as an English patent, albeit it looks much nicer and has some fiddly Latin.
The Lord Advocate
Lest it be thought that only the First Minister gets a hand written patent, we turn now to one of the oldest Scottish government officials (whereas the First Minister might be argued to be both one of the newest and, by virtue of being ex officio Keeper of the [seal appointed... words...] Great Seal of Scotland, one of the oldest too).
The Lord Advocate, or Her Majesty's Advocate, is the Scottish equivalent of the Attorney-General. Except that his role is much larger. All prosecutions run in his name, and the Scottish equivalent of the CPS, the Crown Office [54] and Procurator-Fiscal Service is run by him.
There has been an Lord Advocate, or equivalent, since about 1483. After the office of Secretary of State for Scotland abated in the 18th century (scroll up, a lot), for a time the Lord Advocate essentially ran government in Scotland. Even thereafter he was the principal advisor on Scots law to Her Majesty's Government until 1999.
In 1999, the office became attached to the Scottish Executive (as it was then known), becoming legal adviser to the Scottish Ministers.
And here are his Letters Patent
I note a small conundrum here: to me these look and feel like Letters Patent, but the Lord Advocate's Secretary insists on calling it a warrant.
A Scottish Quango: the Information Commissioner
It seems to be the practice in Scotland that even comparatively minor positions get decent looking patents. Section 42 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 provides that(1) For the purposes of this Act there is to be an officer known as the Scottish Information Commissioner (in this Act referred to as the “Commissioner”) who is to be an individual appointed by Her Majesty on the nomination of the Parliament.which, if we were following the English practice, would seem to imply an appointment by Royal Warrant. Instead, however, Letters Patent under the "seal [...] Great Seal of Scotland" [55] are used.
Which is very nice indeed. I know not why the Scottish practice is to put some greater effort into all this, but I wish the Crown Office [56] would do the same in England.
I was especially pleased the Information Commissioner's office included a photo of the reverse of the commission, which always seems to be neglected.
Conclusion
I really don't think there is one thing to take away from all this, except perhaps to notice that the gentle evolution of the British Constitutional order means that nothing about these processes is very consistent.
There are internal consistencies, some of which are almost hilariously trivial. For example, Royal Warrants all use the same typeface, which is different to Letters Patent. And that where unspecified how a power of appointment is to be exercised, at least in England it means by Royal Warrant.
But equally, inconsistencies abound, e.g. why is there no salutation in the Paymaster-General's warrant? Why "Free Grace" in the one for the Procurator-General? Why are the Law Officers appointed by "immediate warrant"?
But, I guess, it would be nowhere near as fun that way, would it.
Acknowledgements
This long article would not have happened without the insights - and rummaging - of my fellow Twitter nerds Jason Loch and Rich Greenhill, nor without the wonderful insights of Bluemantle Pursuivant-of-Arms. I am also indebted to some of Ned Donovan's own work, to literally everyone who has contributed to Heraldica, and to Fitzalan Extra-ordinary Pursuivant-of-Arms, though in the latter case mostly for sending me on the path to red herrings [57]. And of course Steve Elibank, the FOIA sleuth that makes us all look like rank amateurs.
Where I have viciously stolen something from one of you, there should be an appropriate credit but if I have unaccountably missed something do shout.
In addition, the countless FOIA officers in government departments and other public bodies I've hassled: thanks [58]; and the Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council was equally insightful.
Corrigenda
Nothing this long could be without errors, so putting this heading in ready :-)
22nd February 2020
[C1] Rich Greenhill discovered / reminded me / a bit of both that the Lord Privy Seal does have some very minor duties still, so the text in that section has been adjusted. It remains easily the most sinecure of sinecure positions, however.
[C2] Thanks to Bluemantle for this one.
[C3] I am still unsure if it makes sense, but now there's two attempts at it.
[C4] This section was inexplicably omitted from the original version because, well, I forgot it!
23rd February 2020
[C5] Omitted from the original version because I was unsure, until late last night, of the exact "family tree" of the ONS — and in particular my brain failed to grok the move of the Registrar-General from head of the OPCS/ONS over to being part of HMPO.
[C6] Replaced the original defective PNGs of these two patents (wonky transparency channel, basically) with correct ones.
[C7] These should now no longer be rotated 90°...
Colophon
I have assumed that the materials obtained by my various FOIA requests are covered (in some sense) by the Open Government License. In addition, the Privy Council extracts obviously are. As for the Court Circular, I am going to argue if anyone moans that it is fair use as an academic commentary.
[1] The legislative background to this is quite confusing. As best as I can tell, it was initially effected by a transfer of functions order in 1968 (which I think was S.I. 1968 No. 1656 but which you will find, if you follow that link, is unpublished), then modified by the (unamended) Civil Service (Management Functions) Act 1992, which because section 3 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 moved management of the Home Civil Service from being a prerogative to a statutory power, has then been modified extensively.
[2] formally "an audience of the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty"
[3] This could matter in three circumstances, one, the Queen could dismiss a Prime Minister who having lost the confidence of the Commons failed to resign [4]; two, the Queen could probably reject the advice of an outgoing Prime Minister where the name tendered clearly could not command the confidence of the Commons; and three, where a Prime Minister has died in office there is obviously no outgoing Prime Minister to offer any advice.
[4] Modulo the effects of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which is probably not long for this Earth anyway
[5] The movie The Queen got this quite wrong, as the New York Times point out.
[6] For non-avid constitutional nerds, the Court Circular (published daily in The Times, the Telegraph, and the Scotsman, and online) is the daily record of official Royal engagements.
[7] There are currently seventeen of them, though one is a bit strange.
[8] The "department" - "office" switch is unique to the Home Office; the Foreign Secretary is "Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs", omitting the "Office" entirely.
[9] Which, incidentally, is mentioned in section VI of the House of Lords Precedence Act 1539 (31 Hen. VIII. cap. 10) and which still provides the authority for Secretaries of State who are also Barons to precede all other Barons.
[10] Although there had been multiple secretaries before this time on occasions, this was the first time they had delinated responsibilities: the two departments divided home affairs geographically (obviously), while for foreign matters the Northern Department handled the broadly Protestant Northern Europe and the Southern Department the broadly Catholic Southern Europe.
[11] Although there are hints in various places that sometimes the seals may be fictitious; and in any case seals for older departments have been known to be "recycled" for newer ones with the addition of strategically placed scotch tape [CITE me].
[12] This PDF, which we will refer to quite a bit more
[13] This particular day of the Court Circular will keep cropping up again.
[14] Section 10 of the same Act provides for the name of the present Sovereign to be substitute for Queen Victoria here.
[15] "The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England", Lord Campbell, vol. VII p. <I forgot to write it down>
[16] The office of Lord High Steward being above it, but this being only filled for coronations, the office is almost always void.
[17] Whereas by the House of Lords Precedence Act 1539, he would sit immediately after the Lord High Steward, himself immediately after the Lord Archbishop of York. Quite how this peculiar difference emerged seems to have been lost to the sands of time. Some cite section X of the Act as authority for this, but I can't seen that it necessarily avails one.
[18] Inter alia, relations with the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man and an almost unimaginable range of ecclesiastical responsibilities.
[19] It's always seals, except when it isn't a seal.
[20] A public domain photograph of the seal, obtained from Wikimedia Commons; whether or not a photograph of the seal is "counterfeiting the great seal"
[21] Who, confusingly, was responsible for the Wardrobe, not the Great Wardrobe, nor the Privy Wardrobe. Try not to think too hard about it all, I know I don't.
[22] 47 & 48 Vict. cap. 30
[22A] And was likewise chairman of the Administrative Trustees under the Chequers Estate Act 1917 until this, along with the equivalent Dorneywood position (that of managing the Dorneywood Thomson Endowment Trust Fund 'B'), was transferred to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster by S.I. 2016 No. 1113 (but you're going to want to watch the dance in S.I.s 2014 No. 2708 and 2013 No. 537 too.
[23] It has, in the past, held a bewildering array of random duties, most notably as the de facto education minister in the United Kingdom. A legacy of this is that many universities and some schools have the Lord President as their visitors.
[24] Cf. Nick Clegg and Lord Mandelson
[25] which dates from ca. 1126, and was first held by someone known solely as "Nigel", then then Lord Bishop of Salisbury.
[26] I note here that in theory all Great Offices of State can be put into Commission, and all of them except Lord President and Lord Privy Seal seem to have been at least once. Although the Lord High Admiral was invariably in Commission for most of the time the Lord High Treasurer has been; after the establishment of the Ministry of Defence this vested in Her Majesty until she appointed His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh to it. But it is from that Admiralty Commission that we get Winston Churchill's office at the start of the Second World War as "First Lord of the Admiralty" which follows by analogy from "First Lord of the Treasury" (and begat the Chief of the Naval Staff being ex officio First Sea Lord).
[27] Elsewhere someone else no doubt discusses the different "grades" of Letters Patent/Royal Warrants. This, printed on stiff paper with a wafer seal, is the bottom one. The "God tier" variant involves a fully scrivened Patent, illuminated lettering, a painted/inked border, all printed on vellum with a pendant seal. There's also a level in between (though I suppose there is an element of you get what you pay for - hopefully I'm not revealing some state secrets here!)
[28] 12 & 13 Vict. cap. 89
[29] 5 & 6 Will. IV. cap. 35; this was also the Act which effected the merger of the four existing offices into one.
[30] Now, almost all warrants are these days countersigned by the Lord Chancellor (and in the past it was the Home Secretary who often did likewise). What is unusual here is that the 1835 Act requires someone else to countersign it.
[31] And any that have been missed were declared to be jointly exerciseable by the Secretary of State and the Board (or the President) by the Article 2 of The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Order 1970 (S.I. 1970 No. 1537)
[32] This is likely due to a combination of two related things: since the suspension of the Northern Ireland Parliament the Attorney-General for England (as it then was) had been ex officio Attorney-General for Northern Ireland and therefore the department had experience of Northern Irish law; and in any case the differences between English Law and Northern Irish Law are minimal compared to Scots Law.
[33] And until the 1990s were entitled, like Pusine Judges of the High Court, to an automatic Knighthood too. Which we should bring back, if only because then we could have had Sir Geoffrey Cox and now Dame Suella.
[34] This is actually the unsealed draft, but nothing turns on that. Why one is double-spaced and one isn't is a total mystery.
[35] In the "olden days" this list was much longer, and even Ladies of the Bedchamber (remember that particular Victorian crisis?) were political appointees.
[36] Yes, really. I sometimes wish I was making these things up...
[37] And, when appropriate, Baronesses-in-Waiting
[38] These should be distinguished from the Permanent Lords-in-Waiting, who are retired former senior members of Her Majesty's Household, e.g. the Lord Vesty, who is a former Master of the Horse.
[39] Distinguished by this adjective from the Permanent Under-Secretaries of State.
[40] From which, the word 'customs' descends.
[41] By the Sovereign Grant Act 2011, which inter alia has the best preamble of any Act of Parliament.
[42] The Civil List Act 1937 then refers to the Civil List Act 1936 which refers to the Civil List Act 1910 which... you get the idea. One day I will follow this chain all the way back.
[43] 9 & 10 Eliz. II. cap. 55
[44] By the Forestry Act 1919, (9 & 10 Geo. V. cap. 58)
[45] Sometimes the "Tonnage Act 1694", (5 & 6 Will. & Mar. cap. 20)
[46] And thus caught by section 37 of the Freedom of Information Act
[47] It was precisely one, Loch vs. Information Commissioner & Ministry of Justice [2018] UKFTT 2017_0223 (GRC)
[48] An all round better name.
[49] 39 & 40 Vict. cap. 18
[50] This already long blog is a veritable smorgasboard of random facts.
[50A] 1° & 2° Eliz. II cap. 37
[50B] The poor quality of this image is because Her Majesty's Passport Office, who seem to have absorbed and assimilated the General Register Office, sent me it in quite literally the least helpful format possible.
[51] The "Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England". Oh you didn't think Master of the Rolls was his full title, did you?
[52] 6 & 7 Eliz. II cap. 51
[53] This image being viciously stolen from The National Records of Scotland website, where it is available under version 3 of the Open Government License.
[54] This is that Crown Office; neither that one in the Ministry of Justice, nor that one in the Queen's Bench Division.
[55] Look, I'm not writing it out each time.
[56] Now I mean that one. Not the Scottish one nor the High Court one.
[6] For non-avid constitutional nerds, the Court Circular (published daily in The Times, the Telegraph, and the Scotsman, and online) is the daily record of official Royal engagements.
[7] There are currently seventeen of them, though one is a bit strange.
[8] The "department" - "office" switch is unique to the Home Office; the Foreign Secretary is "Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs", omitting the "Office" entirely.
[9] Which, incidentally, is mentioned in section VI of the House of Lords Precedence Act 1539 (31 Hen. VIII. cap. 10) and which still provides the authority for Secretaries of State who are also Barons to precede all other Barons.
[10] Although there had been multiple secretaries before this time on occasions, this was the first time they had delinated responsibilities: the two departments divided home affairs geographically (obviously), while for foreign matters the Northern Department handled the broadly Protestant Northern Europe and the Southern Department the broadly Catholic Southern Europe.
[11] Although there are hints in various places that sometimes the seals may be fictitious; and in any case seals for older departments have been known to be "recycled" for newer ones with the addition of strategically placed scotch tape [CITE me].
[12] This PDF, which we will refer to quite a bit more
[13] This particular day of the Court Circular will keep cropping up again.
[14] Section 10 of the same Act provides for the name of the present Sovereign to be substitute for Queen Victoria here.
[15] "The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England", Lord Campbell, vol. VII p. <I forgot to write it down>
[16] The office of Lord High Steward being above it, but this being only filled for coronations, the office is almost always void.
[17] Whereas by the House of Lords Precedence Act 1539, he would sit immediately after the Lord High Steward, himself immediately after the Lord Archbishop of York. Quite how this peculiar difference emerged seems to have been lost to the sands of time. Some cite section X of the Act as authority for this, but I can't seen that it necessarily avails one.
[18] Inter alia, relations with the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man and an almost unimaginable range of ecclesiastical responsibilities.
[19] It's always seals, except when it isn't a seal.
[20] A public domain photograph of the seal, obtained from Wikimedia Commons; whether or not a photograph of the seal is "counterfeiting the great seal"
[21] Who, confusingly, was responsible for the Wardrobe, not the Great Wardrobe, nor the Privy Wardrobe. Try not to think too hard about it all, I know I don't.
[22] 47 & 48 Vict. cap. 30
[22A] And was likewise chairman of the Administrative Trustees under the Chequers Estate Act 1917 until this, along with the equivalent Dorneywood position (that of managing the Dorneywood Thomson Endowment Trust Fund 'B'), was transferred to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster by S.I. 2016 No. 1113 (but you're going to want to watch the dance in S.I.s 2014 No. 2708 and 2013 No. 537 too.
[23] It has, in the past, held a bewildering array of random duties, most notably as the de facto education minister in the United Kingdom. A legacy of this is that many universities and some schools have the Lord President as their visitors.
[24] Cf. Nick Clegg and Lord Mandelson
[25] which dates from ca. 1126, and was first held by someone known solely as "Nigel", then then Lord Bishop of Salisbury.
[26] I note here that in theory all Great Offices of State can be put into Commission, and all of them except Lord President and Lord Privy Seal seem to have been at least once. Although the Lord High Admiral was invariably in Commission for most of the time the Lord High Treasurer has been; after the establishment of the Ministry of Defence this vested in Her Majesty until she appointed His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh to it. But it is from that Admiralty Commission that we get Winston Churchill's office at the start of the Second World War as "First Lord of the Admiralty" which follows by analogy from "First Lord of the Treasury" (and begat the Chief of the Naval Staff being ex officio First Sea Lord).
[27] Elsewhere someone else no doubt discusses the different "grades" of Letters Patent/Royal Warrants. This, printed on stiff paper with a wafer seal, is the bottom one. The "God tier" variant involves a fully scrivened Patent, illuminated lettering, a painted/inked border, all printed on vellum with a pendant seal. There's also a level in between (though I suppose there is an element of you get what you pay for - hopefully I'm not revealing some state secrets here!)
[28] 12 & 13 Vict. cap. 89
[29] 5 & 6 Will. IV. cap. 35; this was also the Act which effected the merger of the four existing offices into one.
[30] Now, almost all warrants are these days countersigned by the Lord Chancellor (and in the past it was the Home Secretary who often did likewise). What is unusual here is that the 1835 Act requires someone else to countersign it.
[31] And any that have been missed were declared to be jointly exerciseable by the Secretary of State and the Board (or the President) by the Article 2 of The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Order 1970 (S.I. 1970 No. 1537)
[32] This is likely due to a combination of two related things: since the suspension of the Northern Ireland Parliament the Attorney-General for England (as it then was) had been ex officio Attorney-General for Northern Ireland and therefore the department had experience of Northern Irish law; and in any case the differences between English Law and Northern Irish Law are minimal compared to Scots Law.
[33] And until the 1990s were entitled, like Pusine Judges of the High Court, to an automatic Knighthood too. Which we should bring back, if only because then we could have had Sir Geoffrey Cox and now Dame Suella.
[34] This is actually the unsealed draft, but nothing turns on that. Why one is double-spaced and one isn't is a total mystery.
[35] In the "olden days" this list was much longer, and even Ladies of the Bedchamber (remember that particular Victorian crisis?) were political appointees.
[36] Yes, really. I sometimes wish I was making these things up...
[37] And, when appropriate, Baronesses-in-Waiting
[38] These should be distinguished from the Permanent Lords-in-Waiting, who are retired former senior members of Her Majesty's Household, e.g. the Lord Vesty, who is a former Master of the Horse.
[39] Distinguished by this adjective from the Permanent Under-Secretaries of State.
[40] From which, the word 'customs' descends.
[41] By the Sovereign Grant Act 2011, which inter alia has the best preamble of any Act of Parliament.
[42] The Civil List Act 1937 then refers to the Civil List Act 1936 which refers to the Civil List Act 1910 which... you get the idea. One day I will follow this chain all the way back.
[43] 9 & 10 Eliz. II. cap. 55
[44] By the Forestry Act 1919, (9 & 10 Geo. V. cap. 58)
[45] Sometimes the "Tonnage Act 1694", (5 & 6 Will. & Mar. cap. 20)
[46] And thus caught by section 37 of the Freedom of Information Act
[47] It was precisely one, Loch vs. Information Commissioner & Ministry of Justice [2018] UKFTT 2017_0223 (GRC)
[48] An all round better name.
[49] 39 & 40 Vict. cap. 18
[50] This already long blog is a veritable smorgasboard of random facts.
[50A] 1° & 2° Eliz. II cap. 37
[50B] The poor quality of this image is because Her Majesty's Passport Office, who seem to have absorbed and assimilated the General Register Office, sent me it in quite literally the least helpful format possible.
[51] The "Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England". Oh you didn't think Master of the Rolls was his full title, did you?
[52] 6 & 7 Eliz. II cap. 51
[53] This image being viciously stolen from The National Records of Scotland website, where it is available under version 3 of the Open Government License.
[54] This is that Crown Office; neither that one in the Ministry of Justice, nor that one in the Queen's Bench Division.
[55] Look, I'm not writing it out each time.
[56] Now I mean that one. Not the Scottish one nor the High Court one.
[57] I am sorry but I couldn't resist!
[58] Except the useless denizens of the Cabinet Office
