What does the UK Home Secretary do?
May 12, 2010 8:34 PM Subscribe
Please explain the UK's Home Secretary Cabinet position to an interested American.
I've looked it up on Wikipedia and on the UK's official site, but I have to admit I'm still somewhat clueless. What does the UK's Home Secretary and Home Office actually do?
At the risk of sounding America-centric, is the position the equivalent of the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security?
Please, no flames. I'm only asking as someone who is genuinely interested in geopolitics and trying to understand the intricacies of another country's government system.
I've looked it up on Wikipedia and on the UK's official site, but I have to admit I'm still somewhat clueless. What does the UK's Home Secretary and Home Office actually do?
At the risk of sounding America-centric, is the position the equivalent of the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security?
Please, no flames. I'm only asking as someone who is genuinely interested in geopolitics and trying to understand the intricacies of another country's government system.
The equivalent translation in many countries is "interior ministry", but it's very different from the Department of the Interior in the US. It covers policing, immigration and citizenship, internal security, etc.
The Home Office used to be in charge of the criminal justice system but that has been separated into a separate Ministry of Justice, but Home Secretary remains one of the four Great Offices of State.
posted by holgate at 9:02 PM on May 12, 2010
The Home Office used to be in charge of the criminal justice system but that has been separated into a separate Ministry of Justice, but Home Secretary remains one of the four Great Offices of State.
posted by holgate at 9:02 PM on May 12, 2010
Start at the beginning: in the UK there don't exist the federal levels of government there are in the US (municipal, state and federal). So all kinds of functions which in the US are devolved to smaller communities, like law enforcement and the ordinary bureacracy of criminal justice are done in the UK centrally, at the national level.
Where Homeland Security has a relatively narrow remit, the Home Office defines security more broadly, and the Home Secretary is ultimately responsible for what in the US would be the responsibility of a very large number of State and local officials.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:16 PM on May 12, 2010
Where Homeland Security has a relatively narrow remit, the Home Office defines security more broadly, and the Home Secretary is ultimately responsible for what in the US would be the responsibility of a very large number of State and local officials.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:16 PM on May 12, 2010
Which is not to say that the national level is the only level of UK Government—the Councils are very powerful—but just that they exercise social service and welfare, rather than security, functions.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:32 PM on May 12, 2010
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:32 PM on May 12, 2010
Also, don't forget, the Minister is an elected politician, a member of the governing party (coalition), not an appointee.
posted by wilful at 10:30 PM on May 12, 2010
posted by wilful at 10:30 PM on May 12, 2010
all kinds of functions which in the US are devolved to smaller communities, like law enforcement and the ordinary bureacracy of criminal justice are done in the UK centrally, at the national level.
Devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has changed things in the last decade, but the Home Office retains more reserved powers across the entire UK than many other ministries.
posted by holgate at 10:46 PM on May 12, 2010
Devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has changed things in the last decade, but the Home Office retains more reserved powers across the entire UK than many other ministries.
posted by holgate at 10:46 PM on May 12, 2010
Don't forget that the Home Office was split in two:
a) Department of Constitution Affairs, renamed the Ministry of Justice -- deals with prisons, probation, etc.;
b) Home Office -- terrorism, security and immigration
Used to be that the Home Secretary had responsibility for ALLLL of that.
More info here:
Home Office to be split into two (BBC, 29 March 2007)
posted by teedee2000 at 10:46 PM on May 12, 2010
a) Department of Constitution Affairs, renamed the Ministry of Justice -- deals with prisons, probation, etc.;
b) Home Office -- terrorism, security and immigration
Used to be that the Home Secretary had responsibility for ALLLL of that.
More info here:
Home Office to be split into two (BBC, 29 March 2007)
posted by teedee2000 at 10:46 PM on May 12, 2010
Best answer: I have worked in both the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice (still do in the latter). What's above is all good stuff. The split between a Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Justice, as many European countries have, is a good way to conceive of them. Here is a more detailed list of what the two do.
Home Office:
- immigration
- passports
- policing
- crime prevention
- drugs
- counter-terrorism
- ID cards (well, until yesterday when the new Government got rid of them)
It does immigration and counter-terrorism for all of the UK, as these are quite hard issues to devolve. Everything else it does for England and Wales.
Ministry of Justice:
- prisons
- probation
- sentencing framework (ie how long you go to prison/serve a community order)
- criminal law (ie what is an offence)
- criminal and civil courts
- legal aid
- criminal justice process (ie bringing offenders to justice if the Home Office hasn't prevented them from doing stuff!)
- victims and witnesses of crime
- constitutional issues (eg human rights, electoral system)
Again some of these, like constitutional issues, it does for the UK. The rest are England and Wales only.
posted by greycap at 11:30 PM on May 12, 2010 [4 favorites]
Home Office:
- immigration
- passports
- policing
- crime prevention
- drugs
- counter-terrorism
- ID cards (well, until yesterday when the new Government got rid of them)
It does immigration and counter-terrorism for all of the UK, as these are quite hard issues to devolve. Everything else it does for England and Wales.
Ministry of Justice:
- prisons
- probation
- sentencing framework (ie how long you go to prison/serve a community order)
- criminal law (ie what is an offence)
- criminal and civil courts
- legal aid
- criminal justice process (ie bringing offenders to justice if the Home Office hasn't prevented them from doing stuff!)
- victims and witnesses of crime
- constitutional issues (eg human rights, electoral system)
Again some of these, like constitutional issues, it does for the UK. The rest are England and Wales only.
posted by greycap at 11:30 PM on May 12, 2010 [4 favorites]
Oh and feel free to e-mail me if you have any other questions, happy to try to explain any points of detail.
posted by greycap at 11:31 PM on May 12, 2010
posted by greycap at 11:31 PM on May 12, 2010
Also worth noting it's often a poisoned challice. If you look at the list of recent home secretaries, most have left office under a cloud.
posted by MuffinMan at 12:59 AM on May 13, 2010
posted by MuffinMan at 12:59 AM on May 13, 2010
Also, don't forget, the Minister is an elected politician, a member of the governing party (coalition), not an appointee.
Well, sort of. The minister is a member of Parliament, so the minister was elected by his district. So he's elected in the sense that the minister has to be an MP. But it's the PM who chooses who should be ministers, and in that sense he's appointed. It's just that the pool of people who are elegible to be appointed is very small.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:27 AM on May 13, 2010
Well, sort of. The minister is a member of Parliament, so the minister was elected by his district. So he's elected in the sense that the minister has to be an MP. But it's the PM who chooses who should be ministers, and in that sense he's appointed. It's just that the pool of people who are elegible to be appointed is very small.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:27 AM on May 13, 2010
Yes, the home secretary is an elected member of the legislature, but an appointed member of the government (members of the government, i.e. the executive, can only be appointed from among the members of the Houses of Parliament).
Also worth noting that the current Home Secretary, who was appointed yesterday, is female.
posted by altolinguistic at 3:16 AM on May 13, 2010
Also worth noting that the current Home Secretary, who was appointed yesterday, is female.
posted by altolinguistic at 3:16 AM on May 13, 2010
Also, don't forget, the Minister is an elected politician, a member of the governing party (coalition), not an appointee.
Well, sort of. The minister is a member of Parliament, so the minister was elected by his district. So he's elected in the sense that the minister has to be an MP. But it's the PM who chooses who should be ministers, and in that sense he's appointed. It's just that the pool of people who are elegible to be appointed is very small.
Technically, I think this is also not totally right; it is possible for a member of the House of Lords to hold the position of Secretary of State, for example, Lord Mandelson was until recently SoS for BIS, while Baron Adoonis was SoS for Transport. Again this is an appointment, but from a wider pool and that pool can be widened by the non-elected appointment of someone who is raised to the Lords at the whim (effectively) of the PM.
posted by biffa at 3:23 AM on May 13, 2010
Well, sort of. The minister is a member of Parliament, so the minister was elected by his district. So he's elected in the sense that the minister has to be an MP. But it's the PM who chooses who should be ministers, and in that sense he's appointed. It's just that the pool of people who are elegible to be appointed is very small.
Technically, I think this is also not totally right; it is possible for a member of the House of Lords to hold the position of Secretary of State, for example, Lord Mandelson was until recently SoS for BIS, while Baron Adoonis was SoS for Transport. Again this is an appointment, but from a wider pool and that pool can be widened by the non-elected appointment of someone who is raised to the Lords at the whim (effectively) of the PM.
posted by biffa at 3:23 AM on May 13, 2010
Until fairly recently, the Home Secretary's post was a very wide-ranging one which covered not just law and order but a whole spectrum of social policy issues. (The reasons for this go back into the distant past, and have to do with the fact that the Home Department was originally one of the two main departments of state, so that all matters of domestic policy automatically landed on the Home Secretary's desk unless they were specifically referred elsewhere.) This made it possible for Roy Jenkins, as Home Secretary in the Labour Government of the late 1960s, to pioneer a whole range of liberal reforms such as the relaxation of the divorce laws, the decriminalisation of homosexuality and the legalisation of abortion.
Nowadays the Home Office's responsibilities are more narrowly circumscribed, and more tightly focused on policing and crime prevention. This has given it a reputation as one of the more boring government departments ('the political armpit of Whitehall', according to an article in yesterday's Guardian). Even so, the Home Secretary is still responsible for some of the most controversial areas of government policy, including drugs and immigration, and still has a lot of power to 'set the tone', as it were, in terms of social liberalism vs social conservatism. That's why the voting record of the new incumbent, Theresa May, is being scrutinised so carefully by LGBT campaigners; it's a sign of which way the political wind is blowing. Before the election, the Conservatives' shadow Home Secretary, Chris Grayling, was widely criticised for homophobic remarks, and the fact that he hasn't got the Home Office job may be a sign that Cameron wants to move in a more liberal direction, or at any rate isn't so concerned about appeasing his right-wing base.
It's also worth noting that the Home Secretary has considerable powers under the royal prerogative. (Again, the reasons for this go back into the distant past, and have to do with the fact that, as one of the oldest offices of state, the Home Office has inherited a lot of the crown's traditional powers.) The Home Secretary has a prerogative power to 'maintain the Queen's peace' at all times, which means that he/she is entitled to override the powers of local police authorities. In the event of a national emergency, the emergency prerogative powers kick in, which means that the Home Secretary could be responsible for calling out the armed forces, seizing private property, or .. er, anything really, as the thing about the royal prerogative is that it doesn't have very clear limits.
posted by verstegan at 3:55 AM on May 13, 2010 [2 favorites]
Nowadays the Home Office's responsibilities are more narrowly circumscribed, and more tightly focused on policing and crime prevention. This has given it a reputation as one of the more boring government departments ('the political armpit of Whitehall', according to an article in yesterday's Guardian). Even so, the Home Secretary is still responsible for some of the most controversial areas of government policy, including drugs and immigration, and still has a lot of power to 'set the tone', as it were, in terms of social liberalism vs social conservatism. That's why the voting record of the new incumbent, Theresa May, is being scrutinised so carefully by LGBT campaigners; it's a sign of which way the political wind is blowing. Before the election, the Conservatives' shadow Home Secretary, Chris Grayling, was widely criticised for homophobic remarks, and the fact that he hasn't got the Home Office job may be a sign that Cameron wants to move in a more liberal direction, or at any rate isn't so concerned about appeasing his right-wing base.
It's also worth noting that the Home Secretary has considerable powers under the royal prerogative. (Again, the reasons for this go back into the distant past, and have to do with the fact that, as one of the oldest offices of state, the Home Office has inherited a lot of the crown's traditional powers.) The Home Secretary has a prerogative power to 'maintain the Queen's peace' at all times, which means that he/she is entitled to override the powers of local police authorities. In the event of a national emergency, the emergency prerogative powers kick in, which means that the Home Secretary could be responsible for calling out the armed forces, seizing private property, or .. er, anything really, as the thing about the royal prerogative is that it doesn't have very clear limits.
posted by verstegan at 3:55 AM on May 13, 2010 [2 favorites]
Before the election, the Conservatives' shadow Home Secretary....
Follow-up from another American: what exactly is the role of shadow ministers? I can only conceive of it as members of the opposition who react to the actions of the government in situ by saying, "I would've done something else."
posted by kittyprecious at 7:02 AM on May 13, 2010
Follow-up from another American: what exactly is the role of shadow ministers? I can only conceive of it as members of the opposition who react to the actions of the government in situ by saying, "I would've done something else."
posted by kittyprecious at 7:02 AM on May 13, 2010
Also worth noting it's often a poisoned challice. If you look at the list of recent home secretaries, most have left office under a cloud.
Yes, but Sir Harry Pearce has outlasted all of them.
posted by dforemsky at 7:11 AM on May 13, 2010
Yes, but Sir Harry Pearce has outlasted all of them.
posted by dforemsky at 7:11 AM on May 13, 2010
kittyprecious,
Yep, that's it in a nutshell. They're expected to follow their shadow department quite closely so that they can ask embarrassing questions in the House of Commons.
posted by atrazine at 3:15 PM on May 13, 2010
Yep, that's it in a nutshell. They're expected to follow their shadow department quite closely so that they can ask embarrassing questions in the House of Commons.
posted by atrazine at 3:15 PM on May 13, 2010
Hopefully, though not always, there's a little more to Opposition than that.
There's an expectation, often not borne out, that the shadow minister will take the role of Minister when in government.
Shadow Ministers and the shadow cabinet also recive a few additional privileges, including more staff and a bigger salary.
posted by wilful at 11:38 PM on May 13, 2010
There's an expectation, often not borne out, that the shadow minister will take the role of Minister when in government.
Shadow Ministers and the shadow cabinet also recive a few additional privileges, including more staff and a bigger salary.
posted by wilful at 11:38 PM on May 13, 2010
There's an expectation, often not borne out, that the shadow minister will take the role of Minister when in government.
Indeed, there must be a few sickened tory ex-shadows around this week, since all will have had to step aside if a lib dem was given their place in cabinet. Eg, Greg Clark would have expected to be SoS at DECC and got a ministership at CLG instead.
Shadow Ministers and the shadow cabinet also recive a few additional privileges, including more staff and a bigger salary.
More staff maybe, but only the Leader of the opposition and the opposition chief whip get any more pay than a standard MP.
posted by biffa at 7:21 AM on May 14, 2010
Indeed, there must be a few sickened tory ex-shadows around this week, since all will have had to step aside if a lib dem was given their place in cabinet. Eg, Greg Clark would have expected to be SoS at DECC and got a ministership at CLG instead.
Shadow Ministers and the shadow cabinet also recive a few additional privileges, including more staff and a bigger salary.
More staff maybe, but only the Leader of the opposition and the opposition chief whip get any more pay than a standard MP.
posted by biffa at 7:21 AM on May 14, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
So, the Home Office sets the Terrorism Threat Level, so in that regard it overlaps with Homeland Security - I'm no expert on the US setup but based on my basic knowledge I would say overall the Home Office is a mix of your Homeland Security and Justice Department and maybe some other stuff too.
posted by jontyjago at 9:00 PM on May 12, 2010