Style The Right Honourable Formation 19 February 1942 | Inaugural holder Clement Attlee Final holder Nick Clegg | |
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Appointer The Sovereign
on advice of the Prime Minister Website www.dpm.cabinetoffice.gov.uk | ||
The Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (DPM) is a senior member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. The office of the Deputy Prime Minister is not a permanent position, existing only at the discretion of the Prime Minister, who may appoint to other offices – such as First Secretary of State – to give seniority to a particular Cabinet Minister.
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Unlike analogous offices in some other nations, such as a vice-presidency, the British deputy prime minister possesses no special constitutional powers as such, though they will always have particular responsibilities in government. They do not assume the duties and powers of the Prime Minister in the latter's absence, illness, or death, such as the powers to seek a dissolution of parliament, appoint peers or brief the sovereign.
The Deputy Prime Minister does not automatically succeed the Prime Minister when the latter is incapacitated, or resigns from the leadership of his or her party. The designation of someone to the role of Deputy Prime Minister may provide additional practical status within the cabinet, enabling exercise of de facto, if not de jure, power.
In a coalition government, such as the 2010–2015 coalition government between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, the appointment of the leader of the smaller party (in the 2010 case, Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats) as Deputy Prime Minister is done to give that person more authority within the cabinet to enforce the coalition's agreed-upon agenda. The Deputy Prime Minister usually deputises for the Prime Minister at official functions, such as Prime Minister's Questions.
The post of Deputy Prime Minister is not currently in use, having been left empty since the end of the coalition government following the 2015 UK general election.
Absence of the office in the constitution
Many theories exist as to the absence of a formal post of Deputy Prime Minister in Britain's uncodified constitution. Theoretically the sovereign possesses the unrestricted right to choose someone to form a government following the death, resignation or dismissal of a Prime Minister. One argument made to justify the non-existence of a permanent deputy premiership is that such an office-holder would be seen as possessing a presumption of succession to the premiership, thereby effectively limiting the sovereign's right to choose a prime minister.
However, only two Deputy Prime Ministers have gone on to become Prime Minister. Clement Attlee won the 1945 general election and succeeded Winston Churchill after their coalition broke up but only after a two-month interval when Attlee was not a member of the government. Anthony Eden succeeded Churchill as Prime Minister not because he had been Deputy Prime Minister, but because he had long been seen as Churchill's heir apparent and natural successor.
The intermittent existence of a Deputy Prime Minister has been on occasion so informal that there have been a number of occasions on which dispute has arisen as to whether or not the title has actually been conferred.
The position of Deputy Prime Minister is not recognised in United Kingdom law, so any post-holder must be given an additional title in order to have legal status and to be paid a salary additional to the parliamentary one. The last Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, was appointed Lord President of the Council, a minister who presides over meetings of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council and has few other formal responsibilities, for this reason. On some occasions the post of First Secretary of State has been used; when John Prescott lost his departmental responsibilities in an reshuffle in 2005, he was given the office to enable him to retain a ministerial post, and Michael Heseltine was similarly appointed.
Choice
The Deputy Prime Ministership, where it exists, may bring with it practical influence depending on the status of the holder, rather than the status of the position.
Labour Party leader Clement Attlee held the post in the wartime coalition government led by Winston Churchill, and had general responsibility for domestic affairs, allowing Churchill to concentrate on the war. Rab Butler held the post in 1962/63 under Harold Macmillan, but was passed over for the premiership in favour of Alec Douglas-Home.
During the Heath administration of the 1970s, the title of Deputy Prime Minister was not formally used. however in his Memoirs, Home Secretary Reginald Maudling describes himself as Deputy Prime Minister under Heath from 1970 to his resignation in 1972 over the Poulson affair. William Armstrong, head of the Civil Service, was also called Heath's Deputy Prime Minister. The Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Ted Short, was Leader of the House of Commons from 1974 to 1976 and often thought of as Deputy Prime Minister; he was referred to as such in the citation for being made an Honorary Freeman of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne.
William Whitelaw was Margaret Thatcher's deputy from 1979–1988, a post he combined with that of Home Secretary in 1979–83 and Leader of the House of Lords after 1983. Sir Geoffrey Howe was given the title in 1989, on being removed from the post of Foreign Secretary. He resigned as Deputy Prime Minister in 1990, making a resignation speech that is widely thought to have hastened Thatcher's downfall. Thatcher's successor John Major did not appoint a Deputy Prime Minister until 1995, when Michael Heseltine was given the post.
John Prescott, who was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in opposition, was appointed Deputy Prime Minister by Tony Blair in 1997, in addition to being Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions. In 2001 this "superdepartment" was split up, with Prescott being given his own Office of the Deputy Prime Minister with fewer specific responsibilities. In May 2006, the department was removed from the control of the Deputy Prime Minister and renamed as the Department for Communities and Local Government with Ruth Kelly as the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.
Following the 2010 general election, which returned a hung parliament, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats agreed to form a coalition government. As leader of the smaller of the two parties in the coalition, Nick Clegg was appointed Deputy Prime Minister on the advice of the new Prime Minister, Conservative leader David Cameron.
Clegg was the last person to officially hold the post as, following the subsequent 2015 election, in which the Conservatives won an overall majority in the House of Commons, Cameron decided not to appoint a replacement. He chose instead to appoint the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne as First Secretary of State - his effective deputy. After the 2016 referendum on European Union membership, Cameron's successor as Prime Minister, Theresa May, also did not appoint an individual to the post. She did not appoint a replacement for Osborne as First Secretary of State either.
Office and residence
The Deputy Prime Minister's Office (DPMO) is a non-constitutional office, only being formed when a deputy prime minister is appointed which consists of the staff members and advisers who assist the deputy prime minister in his or her role. The most recent Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg maintained an office at the Cabinet Office headquarters, 70 Whitehall, which is linked to 10 Downing Street. Clegg's predecessor, John Prescott, maintained his main office at 26 Whitehall. The office is not an official single department and as such is part of and organised as part of the Cabinet Office.
Given that there is no constitutional office of Deputy Prime Minister, with the position being recreated on a case by case basis, the person who holds the post has no official residence. As a cabinet minister, however, they may have the use of a grace and favour London residence and country house. While in office, Nick Clegg resided at his private residence in Putney, London, and he shared Chevening House with former Foreign Secretary William Hague as a weekend residence. Clegg's predecessor, John Prescott, had the use of a flat in Admiralty House and used Dorneywood as his country residence.