Chancellor of the Exchequer

The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor is a high-ranking member of the British Cabinet.

Responsible for all economic and financial matters, the role is equivalent to that of a finance minister in other countries. The chancellor is now always Second Lord of the Treasury as one of at least six lords commissioners of the Treasury, responsible for executing the office of the Treasurer of the Exchequer the others are the prime minister and Commons government whips. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, it was common for the prime minister also to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer if he sat in the Commons; the last Chancellor who was simultaneously prime minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer was Stanley Baldwin in 1923. Formerly, in cases when the chancellorship was vacant, the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench would act as chancellor ''pro tempore''. The last Lord Chief Justice to serve in this way was Lord Denman in 1834.

The chancellor is the third-oldest major state office in English and British history, and in recent times has come to be the most powerful office in British politics after the prime minister. They originally carried responsibility for the Exchequer, the medieval English institution for the collection and auditing of royal revenues. The earliest surviving records which are the results of the exchequer's audit, date from 1129 to 1130 under King Henry I and show continuity from previous years.Chrimes, ''Administrative History'', pp. 62–63. The Chancellor has oversight of fiscal policy, therefore of taxation and public spending across government departments. It previously controlled monetary policy as well until 1997, when the Bank of England was granted independent control of its interest rates.

Since 1718, all chancellors of the exchequer, except at times the lord chief justice as interim holders, have been members of the House of Commons with Lord Stanhope being the last chancellor from the House of Lords.

The office holder works alongside the other Treasury ministers and the permanent secretary to the Treasury. The corresponding shadow minister is the shadow chancellor of the Exchequer, and the chancellor is also scrutinised by the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson and the Treasury Select Committee.

Second Lord of the Treasury

The holder of the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer is ''ex officio'' Second Lord of the Treasury as a member of the commission exercising the ancient office of Treasurer of the Exchequer. As Second Lord, his official residence is 11 Downing Street in London, next door to the residence of the first lord of the Treasury (a title that has for many years been held by the prime minister), who resides in 10 Downing Street. While in the past both houses were private residences, today they serve as interlinked offices, with the occupant living in an apartment made from attic rooms previously resided in by servants.

Since 1827, the chancellor has almost always held the office of Second Lord of the Treasury when that person has not also been the prime minister. A notable recent exception is Kwasi Kwarteng, whom Charles III appointed Second Lord on 18 October 2022, four days after Kwarteng had resigned the chancellorship.

Roles and responsibilities

A previous chancellor, Robert Lowe, described the office in the following terms in the House of Commons, on 11 April 1870: "The Chancellor of the Exchequer is a man whose duties make him more or less of a taxing machine. He is entrusted with a certain amount of misery which it is his duty to distribute as fairly as he can."

Fiscal policy

The chancellor has considerable control over other departments as it is the Treasury that sets Departmental Expenditure Limits. The amount of power this gives to an individual chancellor depends on their personal forcefulness, their status within their party and their relationship with the prime minister. Gordon Brown, who became chancellor when Labour came into Government in 1997, had a large personal power base in the party. Perhaps as a result, Tony Blair chose to keep him in the same position throughout his ten years as prime minister; making Brown an unusually dominant figure and the longest-serving chancellor since the Reform Act of 1832. This has strengthened a pre-existing trend towards the chancellor occupying a clear second position among government ministers, elevated above his traditional peers, the foreign secretary and home secretary.

One part of the chancellor's key roles involves the framing of the annual year budget. As of 2017, the first is the Autumn Budget, also known as Budget Day which forecasts government spending in the next financial year and also announces new financial measures. The second is a Spring Statement, also known as a "mini-Budget". Britain's tax year has retained the old Julian end of year: 24 March (Old Style) / 5 April (New Style, i.e. Gregorian). From 1993, the Budget was in spring, preceded by an annual autumn statement. This was then called Pre-Budget Report. The Autumn Statement usually took place in November or December. The 1997, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2012 and 2016 budgets were all delivered on a Wednesday, summarised in a speech to the House of Commons.

The budget is a state secret until the chancellor reveals it in his speech to Parliament. Hugh Dalton, on his way to giving the budget speech in 1947, inadvertently blurted out key details to a newspaper reporter, and they appeared in print before he made his speech. Dalton was forced to resign.

Monetary policy

Although the Bank of England is responsible for setting interest rates, the chancellor also plays an important part in the monetary policy structure. He sets the inflation target which the Bank must set interest rates to meet. Under the Bank of England Act 1998 the chancellor has the power of appointment of four out of nine members of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee – the so-called 'external' members. He also has a high level of influence over the appointment of the Bank's Governor and Deputy Governors, and has the right of consultation over the appointment of the two remaining MPC members from within the Bank. The Act also provides that the Government has the power to give instructions to the Bank on interest rates for a limited period in extreme circumstances. This power has never been officially used.

Ministerial arrangements

At HM Treasury the chancellor is supported by a political team of four junior ministers and by permanent civil servants. The most important junior minister is the