LANGUAGE PRACTICE AND COMPREHENSION CHECK. TEXT 3 THE GROWTH OF THE EXECUTIVE . TEXT 3 THE GROWTH OF THE EXECUTIVE

TASK I Complete the sentences using verbs in passive forms:

1. All major government decisions (take)…

2. The policies to be submitted to Parliament (determine)…

3. The Cabinet ensures that the relevant policies (carry out)…

4. Once the matter (decide) …

5. The convention (observe)…

6. The convention (suspend)…

7. The size of the Cabinet (prescribe)…

8. The office of Prime Minister (recognize)

9. Ministers may (bind)…

10. The Prime Minister (choose)…

11. No votes customarily (take)

12. Matters (refer) to sub-committees.

 

TASK II Find in the text those sentences which express similar ideas:

1. The functions of the Cabinet are: the supreme control of the national executive in accordance with the policy agreed by parliament ; and the continuous coordination and delimitation of the authority of Government departments.

2. Under the doctrine of collective responsibility the Cabinet is bound to offer unanimous advice to the Sovereign, even when its members do not hold identical views on a given subject. In principle, once the Government’s policy on a particular matter has been decided, each minister is expected to support it, unless he chooses to resign, as he is free to do.

3. In the exceptional circumstances preceding the referendum in June 1975 on British membership of the European Community, ministers were free to campaign in the country against the Government’s recommendation.

4. A great deal of the work of the Cabinet is carried on through the committee system, which involves the reference of any issue either to a standing Cabinet committee or to an ad hoc committee composed of the ministers primarily concerned.

5. The unique position of authority enjoyed by the Prime Minister derives from his power to submit his own choice of ministers to the Sovereign and to obtain their resignation or dismissal individually. He makes recommendations to the Sovereign for the award of many civil honours and distinctions.

TASK III Insert the proper prepositions into following:

1. The Cabinet is composed ... ministers personally selected ... the Prime Minister and may include the holders of departmental and non-departmental offices.

2. Its origin can be traced back ... the informal conferences that the Sovereign held ... his leading ministers, independently ... the Privy Council, ... the seventeenth century.

3. After the Sovereign’s withdrawal ... an active role in politics ... the eighteenth century, and the development ... organised political parties the Cabinet assumed its modern form.

4. The functions of the Cabinet are: the final determination ... the policy to be submitted ... Parliament; the supreme control of the national executive in accordance ... the policy agreed ... Parliament.

5. The exercise of these functions is vitally affected ... the fact that the Cabinet is a group of party representatives, depending ... its existence ... the support of a majority ... the House of Commons.

TEXT 3 THE GROWTH OF THE EXECUTIVE

 

Impelled by the demands of a larger electorate, the executive branch of government began to increase in size and range of powers and the modern professional civil service came into being. From the 1870s until the 1970s the constitution was dominated by a communitarian ideology which saw the function of government as not only to keep order but to provide for the well-being of its people. The powers of the House of Lords representing the old balanced constitution were diminished and executive discretionary power increased. Governmental functions which had previously been exercised by local bodies were increasingly concentrated in central departments under the control of ministers answerable to Parliament.

The eighteenth-century statute book was dominated by laws protecting property policed by the courts. During the nineteenth-century the wider franchise led to social welfare legislation which required a large and powerful executive. Nineteenth century public health and safety legislation was followed, in the early twentieth century, by substantial housing and urban development legislation. Immediately after the Second World War a wide-ranging welfare system was introduced. This included the Education Act 1944, the National Health Service Act 1946, the National Insurance Act 1946 and legislation nationalising the Bank of England and the coal, gas, electricity, public transport, and steel industries. The dominant economic belief was that the economy should be driven by the state. Subordinate legislation and non-statutory rules were made by the executive on a large scale with limited parliamentary scrutiny. Thousands of administrative tribunals staffed by government appointees were created to deal with the disputes generated by this expansion of state activity.

The constitution made only marginal responses to these fundamental changes. The traditional ideas of the rule of law as embodied in the common law and of accountability to Parliament were not seriously challenged even though the executive seemed to have outgrown both these constraints. The Donoughmore Committee on Ministers' Powers (1932) and the Franks Committee (1958) recommended marginal reforms which buttressed the powers of the courts and supplemented parliamentary scrutiny of the executive. These included a parliamentary committee to scrutinise such subordinate legislation as statute required to be laid before Parliament (Statutory Instruments Act 1946) and the creation of a Council on Tribunals with powers to approve procedural rules for most administrative tribunals and statutory inquiries (Tribunals and Inquiries Acts 1958, 1971). From the 1960s various “Ombudsmen” were set up to investigate complaints by citizen against government but without enforceable powers.

Recognising the inevitability of executive discretion and reluctant to appear to be challenging the majority, the courts began to defer to political decisions, an attitude which was particularly strong after the Second World War compared with the conflicting attitudes expressed before the First World War. In the inter-war period, opposite fears were expressed, some believing that the executive had taken over, others worried that an individualistically minded judiciary would frustrate popular programmes. However since the 1960s the courts have strengthened their powers of control over the executive so much that worries have been expressed that they are interfering too much in politics.

 

NOTES TO THE TEXT

Subordinate legislation (delegated legislation) – Orders in Council, orders, rules, regulations, schemes, warrants, byelaws and other instruments made or to be made under any Act of Parliament.

Civil service – The body of Crown servants that are employed to put government policies into action and are paid wholly out of money voted annually by Parliament. Civil servants include the administrative and executive staff of central government departments (e.g. the Home Office and Treasury) and the industrial staff of government dockyards and factories. Civil servants may serve in established or unestablished capacities, with effects on pension entitlement, etc. The police (not being Crown servants), the armed forces (not being civil), government ministers, and those (e.g. judges) whose salaries are charged on Consolidated Fund are not civil servants.

Ombudsman – Parliamentary Commissioner, an official who investigates complaints by the public against government departments or other big organizations. The word ombudsman comes from the Scandinavian Ombud, a commissioner. The -man/-men suffix is entirely English.

Statute book – The entire body of existing statutes.

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