THE GOVERNMENT

The government consists of all ministers with executive responsibility:

> the Prime Minister is the head of government

> the Cabinet consists of those senior ministers who meet regularly to determine and co-ordinate government policy

> junior ministers are those not in the Cabinet who do not have responsibility for a department of state - they include Ministers of State (2nd ranking) and Parliamentary Under-Secretaries (3rd ranking).

The size of the government is now about 100, which is a significant proportion of the total number of MPs - and an even bigger proportion of the MPs of the majority party. This creates difficulty in recruitment of suitable candidates and is one of the reasons for the inclusion of members of the House of Lords in the government.

All ministers must be either MPs or peers - in order that they can be directly accountable to Parliament, through Question Time, etc. This contrasts with, for example, the United States, where neither the President nor ministers are members of Congress, as part of the separation of powers.