History shows that a government can continue without its leader

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is seriously ill in hospital and not able to preside over ministerial meetings. From a constitutional perspective, are we in unprecedented times? Is Dominic Raab in effect acting prime minister? The answer to both questions is no.

There have been various times when a prime minister has been temporarily unavailable. When they have been abroad at conferences or on holiday, a senior minister has been invited to “act as deputy prime minister”. On occasion, a prime minister has been incapacitated through illness.

The most notable post-war occasion was in 1953 when Winston Churchill had a stroke, and his heir apparent, the foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, was abroad undergoing a serious operation. As Eden’s biographer, Robert Rhodes James noted: “For three months, Britain had neither an effective prime minister nor a foreign secretary.” This was hidden from the public, and other ministers kept the wheels of government turning.

If a prime minister is temporarily unavailable for whatever reason, it is up to the premier to designate who should stand in for him. There is no formal position that determines who fulfils this role. Holding the title of deputy prime minister does not mean that one automatically stands in for the PM in the latter’s absence. Whereas deputy prime minister is a title and not a salaried ministerial post, first secretary of state is a formal position denoting seniority among secretaries of state. However, it confers no status beyond that. At the Prime Minister’s invitation, he stands in to chair meetings that the Prime Minister is unable to do, but he does not fulfil other functions which derive from the PM being the sovereign’s principal adviser, such as choosing ministers or having a weekly audience. While the Prime Minister is in hospital, all being well on a temporary basis, ministers are capable of keeping government running – as they did in 1953 – albeit at a time of severe crisis.

A different situation arises if the prime minister is incapacitated on a permanent basis. In instances of serious illness in the past – as in 1923 when Andrew Bonar Law was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer – a prime minister has resigned. But that was when a successor could be appointed quickly by the sovereign. Now a party leader is elected by the party membership and, if contested, that can take weeks, even months. If a prime minister is unable to stay in post until a successor is elected, is there provision for an acting PM? There is a precedent in that, in 1834, the Duke of Wellington served briefly as such until Robert Peel could return from Rome. In 1953, ministers did consider whether, in the event of Churchill resigning, they should recommend to the Queen a caretaker government, headed by Lord Salisbury (though not with the title of prime minister), until Eden was fit enough to take over.

There is no constitutional bar to someone being appointed as acting prime minister until such time as a new leader is elected.

Insofar as it is an issue that has been considered by authorities, the view has been in line with that taken by ministers in 1953, namely that whoever the Cabinet nominated to serve temporarily, it should not be someone who was a candidate for the leadership. They could thus preside until such time as a new leader was chosen and ready to lead.

‘While the Prime Minister is in hospital, ministers are capable of keeping government running’