hi I'm Ollie and in this Pods Explained video I'm going to go through everything you need to know about the structure role and powers of the executive in EDXL Alevel politics the PDF that you can see on your screen you can purch Alevel politics where you can also find loads of other resources to help you in your politics A level including detailed essay plans on UK government but also every single part of the course detailed updated textbooks covering every part of the course that continuously update throughout the year once you've purchased them as politics changes so quickly as well as a place to sign up for tutoring and some revision webinars we do every year if that's something you'd be interested in without further ado let's get into it so starting off with the parts of the specification this video is going to cover and this is the first part of the prime minister and the executive topic looking at the structure role and powers of the executive so that is structure including the prime minister cabinet junior ministers and government departments its main roles include proposing legislation of budget and making policy decisions and finally the main powers of the executive including royal prerogative powers initiation of legislation and secondary legislative powers it's unlikely you'd get a question just on this content but it's really useful to know to kind of understand and be able to answer questions on the rest of the kind of prime minister and the executive topic whilst you could definitely get a question on evaluate the view that the roles and powers of the executive allow it to dominate parliament or something like that that really um focuses in large part on the content in this and in that plan there's an essay plan on the politics plan website that's part of the UK um government essay plans that you can have a look at for this question but you'd effectively structure it around parliament's leg the executive sorry's legislative powers its prerogative powers and potentially its um powers to kind of control policy and propose a budget and look for for and against arguments within those so whilst we're going through the content have a think about the key arguments you could use for either of those and some of the examples you could use so starting off by having a look at the structure of the executive and crucial to the structure of the executive is of course the prime minister who's currently ga they're the head of the executive so the executive effectively means the government and they manage its agenda personnel and structure and they really are dominant and they do so through the power of patronage which allows them to control the appointment and firing of all ministers including cabinet ministers and junior ministers and they frequently throughout um their term reshuffle their cabinet in order to maintain um their authority and kind of freshen up bring in new um new cabinet ministers in order to maybe try and get things done differently or achieve a particular thing um on their agenda and they also use the government whips to keep their party in line which is really really important so every week there are cabinet meetings which they chair and set the agenda of so they decide which ministers sit on cabinet committees as well which is smaller committees but crucially within those cabinet meetings they um set the agenda and they're effectively able to try and use them to drive certain policies and ideas through government effectively and they also organize a structure of government and can create abolish or merge departments and the the most recent key example of this is in June 2020 when Boris Johnson merged the department for international aid and the foreign office which effectively made international aid a little bit less important by removing um its own department okay so the prime minister heads the executive as part of the executive or government there are also government departments and these are key to the kind of the structure of the executive each of them is responsible for an area of policy and there are currently 24 ministerial departments and these include the treasury department for transport department for health and social care for example as well as lots of others I'm sure you've heard of each department is headed by a cabinet minister so all ministers who head um the government departments are the most important ministers and they form the cabinet which is kind of the most important members of the government that's go to the weekly cabinet meetings and therefore important in government decision-m and running the government affected because they each run their department but they're all also supported by a team of junior ministers all of whom are MPs or peers and are responsible for specific aspects of work within the department and that means effectively that there are around 100 government ministers in total even though there only around kind of 23 24 cabinet ministers who sit at cabinet so the current home office is headed by a vet Cooper who's the cabinet minister she's secretary of state for the home department but there are three minister of of state also who have specific responsibilities diana Johnson who's minister of state for crime policing and fire dan Jarvis who's minister for security and Angela Eagle um who's the minister for border security and asylum um and there's also a lord's minister um in there lord Hansen of Flint who's a member of state as the Lord's minister and effectively he is effectively key in representing um the home office within uh the House of Lords effectively there are then even even below that there are two even more junior ministers um who are known as parliamentary under secretary of states and they still play important roles for example Jess Phillips plays a really important role as the parliamentary under secretary of state um and the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls um while Sema Malho um is the parliamentary under secretary for migration and citizenship so that's fairly each government department will have a cabinet minister who runs it but also a number of junior ministers below them who have specific roles and they're given the remit um to control particular um things particular areas of that department crucially departments also oversee executive agencies which are semi-independent and run by civil servants um for example the Department of Transport oversees the DVLA and there are currently 422 executive agencies so they aren't directly managed or run um by by ministers however um they are overseen by the various government departments and therefore the government departments are responsible for their performance responsible for effectively u making changes to them if they don't think they're working effectively so the cabinet as I mentioned consists of around 20 senior ministers who head the department including those who hold the title secretary of state there are currently 22 cabinet ministers including prime minister Stala several other senior figures aren't members of the cabinet but do attend cabinet meetings such as the chief whip and leader of the house and that's because they're really effectively really important to the government including its role in parliament but also its role in the party and controlling the party for the chief whip um for example and some important junior ministers as well so Darren Jones isn't a cabinet minister but he's chief secretary to the treasury which is effectively second behind Rachel Reeves in the treasury and he's a really really important cabinet minister um therefore because the treasury is such an important government department so he um attends cabinet as does Lord Hur KC who's the attorney general attorney general so they both also attend under straight the cabinet can be used for discussion and collective decision-making on important areas of policy though many decisions are actually taken in smaller cabinet committees such as economic affairs and national security council and as we looked at the prime minister and the cabinet video most used to be kind of the UK government used to be structured in what we call cabinet government where all decisions are effectively made by the cabinet but one of the key questions you're going to be asked about now is has is has that shifted away from that with the prime minister having more role including through these smaller cabinet communities and decision-making bodies meetings are fairly formal headed by the prime minister as I mentioned they set the agenda um and crucially when we looked at IND uh individual and collective ministerial responsibility Cabinet miners have to accept collective responsibility for all decisions made by the government so they can disagree around the cabinet table in private on a weekly basis when they go out of of of 10 Downing Street they have to then defend it um to the media they have to defend all of the actions and the decisions of government and then there's the cabinet office which provides administer support and is headed by the cabinet secretary the most senior civil servant in the UK um that's actually not Simon Case anymore where it used to be Simon Case under the previous Conservative government again you're not really going to be ever bringing that into your essays okay and the key roles and functions of the cabinet are to register and ratify decisions made elsewhere to discuss and make decisions on major issues to receive reports on key developments and to settle disputes between departments but again we look much more at the cabinet and its and its roles and extent to which it's important at the video on the prime minister and the cabinet okay now looking more at the uh executive as a whole and looking at its main roles and the first one of those is proposing legislation this is by far the most important one the executive devises and initiates legislation um the government controls most of the parliamentary timetable as we look down the parliament videos and proposes most primary um legislation and and the first key part of this is putting effect policies proposed in their manifestos um so so the government gets elected on a certain manifesto to introduce certain changes when they get into government they have a significant amount of control over legislation and are therefore able to introduce bills and try and pass laws to fulfill their manifesto um commitments and you see that a lot for example um the recent rail ownership act fulfilled a manifesto commitment from Labor to uh nationalize rail effect gradually um take privately owned uh rail companies into um into government ownership um effectively um and there's there's a lot of other measures however um there's also a lot of legislation that gets passed that isn't in the government's manifesto for example the illegal migration bill wasn't in the Conservative Party's 2019 manifesto nor is the safety of Rwanda act but they became really defining of um the government's legislative agenda the king's speech is used at the beginning um of a parliamentary session to outline the areas of government the government intend to legislate on and the key bills they intend to introduce for example the king's speech in July 2024 after Stalmer and the Labour party were elected was used to introduce a number of bills that would fulfill manifesto commitments as I mentioned the House of Lords Hereditary Hereditary Peers Bill the employment rights bill and the Great British Energy Bill the executive also has law making powers over secondary legislation which is really important and we look at this in more um a a little bit more detail when we look at the legislative process in a in a in a previous video um on the channel but effectively this is where it can make changes to the implementation of existing laws within limits set by the um original legislation by passing statutory instruments for example the misuse of drugs act that effectively banned a certain number of drugs but within that legislation there was given the government was given the power to add new drugs um to be banned um so that's something where the government can control through secondary legislation without having to pass a completely new law they can just introduce a statute instrument to add it um to the bill and therefore make changes or that might be in a in a different case spending way more money on something um than something um previously um for example and the majority of stats made by ministers and automatically become laws in less objected to by parliament so parliament can scrutinize them but there's so many made that they don't scrutinize the vast majority of them and that gives the government significant power over secondary legislation a really good recent example from the summer of this is early prisoners release on the 12th of July the government approved a statute instrument a form of secondary legislation to deal with the prisons crisis by allowing the uh early release of prisoners and this meant that prisoners could be released after serving 40% of their term rather than the previous 50% which allowed thousands of prisoners to be released in order to tackle overcrowding in prisons so a very significant change but that wasn't done through passing a new piece of primary legislation instead it was a statue instrument that was introduced by Justice Minister Shivana Mammud and was debated for just for 90 minutes in the Commons in the vast majority of the time you actually don't even see that debate um in parliament in the House of Commons um and it was passed and that shows how really significant um changes can be made through secondary legislation which the government has major control over another key power um of the executive is proposing a budget and making decisions about fiscal policy and when as I mentioned at the start of video the video when you get a question for example do the role and powers of the executive allow it to dominate um parliament you could do a first um paragraph on legislation their legislative powers um and you bring in some of this but of course bring in some of the counterpoints from the other videos on parliament and what you know about how parliament can also obstruct the government's agenda then your second one um your second or third paragraph could be on their role in terms of proposing a budget and also the next one on making policy decisions as well so the executive makes key decisions on economic policy and props a budget and this is a key role of the executive the chancellor currently Rachel Reeves sets out proposed levels of taxation and public spending in the budget um following negotiations um in cabinet they also set out how they expect the economy to perform uh to perform and traditionally budgets are presented in March when there's a new government they often have a first budget earlier such as Reeves who did in October 2024 and in her first budget Reeves set out a number of key changes announcing tax rises worth4 billion um pounds including uh a really significant increase in employers national insurance contribution to raise an additional 25 billion pounds a year despite the fact that wasn't um clearly set out in Labour's manifesto she also announced increase in public spending in some areas um including increasing the minimum wage an extra 22.6 billion pounds for day-to-day spending um on the NHS but she also um effectively announced real-time revenue cuts for seven government departments reflecting somewhat of an authority austerity agenda these are all highly significant changes made by the government that show how making a budget and making decisions around economic and fiscal policy are a key role and power of the executive and another even more recent example to show that is the government's decision even not during a budget to really reduce the international aid budget to increase um defense spending in February 2025 this is in response to effectively kind of a bit of kind of a bit of a question about um whether the United States was still committed to NATO and pressure from Donald Trump to effectively pressure European governments to increase their defense spending and and the government wanted to increase their defense spending to 2.5% of GDP and in recent days and they said that's going to be increased to um to 3% without setting a kind of real kind of formal deadline for that but to do that they reduced the internal international aid budget from.5% to.3% of gross national income and that shows how they can make really important fiscal um decisions um in relation to um effectively economic policy and that can allow them to have a sign significant impact and that's a key role of the executive in terms of making policy decisions then so not only can they introduce legislation and make budget decisions a key thing they can do often without legislation um is set just set the political priorities of the day and determine the country's overall policy um direction whilst also managing kind of day-to-day decisions on policy for example these were really important during CO decisions over when restrictions should be added um or lifted which were often made without primary legislation being passed due to the government's control um over policy in many areas the government Boris Johnson's government for example really focused on Brexit at the start and getting their Brexit agreement um passed but then focused on tackling co and leveling up and that was the key kind of overall policy direction of the country trust um in the very short time she was there tried to set the country in a Thatcherite direction in terms of economic policy sunnak really prioritized tackling immigration and being responsible with national finances so these are really key and if he's setting the direction of government star um it's quite hard to see but there's been a lot of areas focused effectively on what they've tried to call kind of fiscal responsibility but also more recently really changing and shifting policy on immigration could um be a good example of course an interesting point about Starmmer is that um kind of some of the biggest decisions made in Star's government weren't actually the biggest decisions in my opinion made in ST's government weren't any there wasn't any mention of them in the manifesto in terms of strengthening um views strengthening kind of moving more to the right on um immigration exactly the same with winter fuel payments and making that means tested exactly the same with inheritance tax um the inheritance tax tax changes um to farmers and also to uh changes to the welfare bud budget which many saw as penalizing people with disabilities in the UK and that shows that they can make these big policy shifts and policy changes sometimes a lot of them without primary legislation being passed even when they're when they're not in the manifesto and that's a key role um of the government they're not bound by their manifesto good example of this is the government cancelled northern leg of HS2 under Sunnak in October 2023 without um parliamentary approval even though HS2 was originally introduced by two laws approved um by parliament in fact the executive branch has the flexibility to adjust delay or even cancel um segments um of HS2 based on shifting priorities which they did because their authority to manage government spending so there's some key roles of the executive as I mentioned in that question on on whether the kind of the roles and powers of the executive allow them to dominate parliament i'd suggest doing kind of a good structure you could do is one paragraph on their legislative powers one paragraph on kind of their policym decisions and control over the budget and having for and against arguments for that of course some of the against arguments you might bring um in from some other videos the other key paragraph I'd do is on their royal prerogative powers which are effectively powers that traditionally belong to the monarch but have over time been transferred to the prime minister and the cabinet now that the prime minister and the cabinet take on the executive role that the monarch used to they're not set out in statute law but are based on pre practice of previous governments and therefore in some ways conventions key property powers you can point to are first of all the power of patronage which of course we looked at um we look at in more detail at PM the cabinet can control the appointment and firing of all ministers including cabinet ministers and junior ministers and that enables them to really shake their governing team but also hold their party to account um by kind of using the threat of removing the whip or the potential carrot of maybe being able to be a government minister in the future to force their c their party into line to not rebel um on key policies a really good example of um the uh prime minister's power um and the executive power of patronage or the prime minister sorry um is the fact that David Cameron was appointed as foreign secretary even from the house of laws by rich sunnac in November 2023 despite this kind of really breaking convention it shows the extent of the prime's power of patronage the next key one is def declaring war and authorizing the use of the armed forces sorry before we quickly have a look at that one though you could look at some limitations to the government's power of patronage is how they often have to um include big beasts for example reflect the ideological balance um in the party of course we look at that in more detail in the other videos on the channel in the executive the next key power of patience is declaring war and authorizing the use of the armed forces and that's really key used to be controlled by the monarch and now it's controlled by the prime minister primarily and the executive which is given significant powers over foreign policy the executive for example made a decision to give 2.3 billion pounds of military aid to Ukraine in 2022 as well as a2.2 billion pound loan um in March 2025 under stma a key argument however is this power has been reduced in recent decades as it's become a convention that the House of Commons um you have to ask the House of Commons for consent to enact major military action for example Blair got parliamentary approval kind of quite overwhelming parliamentary approval before invading Iraq in 2003 in 2013 David Cameron asked Parliament for approval um for air strikes on Syria in response to Assad's use of chemical weapons however parliament kind of voted no and David C back down and ultimately didn't pursue that despite there being huge pressure from the from the United States from Obama um to do so and in 2018 May initiated a very similar air strikes um or however some of the counterpoints though that in 2018 May initiated very similar air strikes in Syria without asking for the consent of parliament and Sunnak authorized air strikes against the Houthis without parliamentary approval in January 2024 and that's really key um because that's some of the arguments you could say on the one hand okay have those progative powers been limited um because parliamentary approval is required or actually no because you've seen that kind of shift back away from that kind of developing convention in recent years the most other important one is signing treaties and negotiating um with other countries and that's really really important it allows the prime minister and the government to determine and conduct foreign policy and that's one of the key powers that's been brought back to the to the UK um to the government to parliament since leaving the European Union but crucially has it increase parliamentary sovereignty and parliamentary control or just government control it's the government the executive that controls that so we look at that when we look in the EU EU and the sovereignty videos um yeah some key examples of this are the Chaos Islands treaty the UK India trade um deal more recently as well as um a recent trade deal with or kind of signal of intent with the United States and a trade deal with the European Union and crucially you can look at the detail on these by pausing a video but the key point on all of these they were negotiated directly by the government parliament isn't being given a vote on them and that reflects the fact that they're a key power prerogative power of the executive of the prime minister to control foreign policy and control trade deals um effectively and then some other ones you can use are calling a general election taking emergency action um at times of crisis awarding honors and granting legal pardons um I'd say the top two are the most important ones of these you might use and the progative p the prerogative powers we've looked at so far are the most important ones you might use in an essay um calling a general election was removed of the power of the prime minister for a few years with the fixedterm parliament act longer than a few years but that was removed by Boris Johnson's government in 2022 again we looked at that in more detail in one of the earlier constitution videos while seeing also take emergency action in times of crisis for example the government organized and led the vaccine roll out in response to co 19 in response to the far racist farright riots in uh last summer put the police on a national emergency footing there some of key progative powers um of the prime minister and you can think about okay to what extent do they allow the executive to dominate parliament to dominate policy or to what extent um do they not due to some of them being limited in recent years um as we looked at we've already had a look at some of their legislative powers and we look at this more in a parliament video but crucially they have a significant amount of control over the legislative agenda look at this in a little bit more detail now the executive controls the timetable and proposes the vast majority of bills and private members bills have very little success if not backed by the government it's very rare for the government to lose votes in the commons at any point of its passage due to the majority they normally hold you look at Sunnak only being defeated once despite being very unpopular due to his majority tony Blair being defeated just four times in his 10 years of office of course the counterpoint to that is that more recently in the last kind of 10-15 years you've seen some weaker governments with no majorities or smaller majorities that have been defeated more for example Theresa May was defeated 33 times when she had a minority government a key kind of aspect of of the government's control um over legislation is the government's use of a guillotine um which is an allocation of time motion which can end debate on a particular clause in a bill helping it to ensure that votes take place and it can get things through parliament um quick enough effectively of course you can bring in some stuff about the backbench business committee as counterpoints and private members bills as counterpoints and ideas that the government can't control completely um control um parliament or dominate parliament in in terms of legislation um secondary legislative powers as I mentioned we went through a little bit um earlier there's some more examples effectively here also a key way in which the government can dominate parliament and as I mentioned around twothirds of such instruments become law without being debated by MPs they they often have can can introduce kind of quite significant changes of course not as significant as primary legislation but still really significant changes without being scrutinized by the house of commons and around 3,500 of them are introduced a year across all areas for government legislation okay so I hope you found that um video useful as I mentioned the PDF on your screen is part of an updated textbook on the UK government you can purchase on the policy explain website if you're interested where there are also loads of other resources to help you in your politics at A level let me know if you got any questions or comments in the comment section below and I'll see you in the next video