Shadow Cabinet

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 498.

The party with the second largest number of votes at general elections forms the Opposition.

Opposition

There is a Leader of the Opposition in both the House of Commons and House of Lords. The leader of the largest opposition party holds this position, which for the Commons and Lords is currently the Conservative Party.

Lord Strathclyde is the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords.

David Cameron, leader of the Conservative party, is the current Leader of the Opposition in the Commons. This role commands an additional salary to the parliamentary salary received as an MP. The Leader of the Opposition in the Commons picks a 'Shadow Cabinet' to follow the work of government departments.

The Shadow Cabinet consists of MPs from the main opposition party in the House of Commons, currently the Conservative Party. Its role is to examine the work of each government department and policies developing in their specific areas.

Opposition days are days allocated in each session for the discussion of subjects chosen by the Opposition. The Opposition generally use them to raise questions of policy and administration.

The most public parliamentary function of the Leader of the Opposition is Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs), currently a 30 minute session held on Wednesday afternoons when Parliament is sitting. The Leader of the Opposition has 6 questions, which he usually splits into two sets. Other backbench opposition MPs also have the right to question the Prime Minister; they are selected either through a ballot, or by "catching the Speaker's eye". By convention other Shadow Cabinet members do not question the Prime Minister at PMQs, except when standing in for the Leader.

In British parliamentary practice, the Official Loyal Opposition Shadow Cabinet (usually known simply as 'The Shadow Cabinet') is a group of members from Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition who scrutinise their corresponding office holders in government, and develop alternative policies.^[1] Since 1997 the Conservative Party has been Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, and its leadership therefore forms the current Shadow Cabinet.