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Privy Council (United Kingdom)

His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council is a formal body of advisers to the sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its members, known as privy counsellors, are mainly senior politicians who are current or former members of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords.

"UKPC" redirects here. For the court of last resort with this neutral citation, see Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Abbreviation

Privy Council (PC)

1 January 1801 (1801-01-01)

Advisory body

Members of the Privy Council

Charles III
(King-in-Council)

Penny Mordaunt

Richard Tilbrook

Ceri King

Privy Council Office

privycouncil.gov.uk

The Privy Council formally advises the sovereign on the exercise of the royal prerogative. The King-in-Council issues executive instruments known as Orders in Council. The Privy Council also holds the delegated authority to issue Orders of Council, mostly used to regulate certain public institutions. It advises the sovereign on the issuing of royal charters, which are used to grant special status to incorporated bodies, and city or borough status to local authorities. Otherwise, the Privy Council's powers have now been largely replaced by its executive committee, the Cabinet of the United Kingdom.


Certain judicial functions are also performed by the King-in-Council, although in practice its actual work of hearing and deciding upon cases is carried out day-to-day by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The Judicial Committee consists of senior judges appointed as privy counsellors: predominantly justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and senior judges from the Commonwealth. The Privy Council formerly acted as the final court of appeal for the entire British Empire (other than for the United Kingdom itself). It continues to hear judicial appeals from some other independent Commonwealth countries, as well as Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories.

the – operation of the intelligence services in the runup to military intervention in Iraq

Butler Committee

the Chilcot Committee – for the on the use of intercept materials

Chilcot Inquiry

the of enquiry set up in 2010 – to consider whether the UK security services were complicit in torture of detainees.

Gibson Committee

Other councils[edit]

The Privy Council is one of the four principal councils of the sovereign. The other three are the courts of law, the Commune Concilium (Common Council, i.e. Parliament) and the Magnum Concilium (Great Council, i.e. the assembly of all the peers of the realm). All are still in existence, or at least have never been formally abolished, but the Magnum Concilium has not been summoned since 1640 and was considered defunct even then.[99][117]


Several other privy councils have advised the sovereign. England and Scotland once had separate privy councils (the Privy Council of England and Privy Council of Scotland). The Acts of Union 1707 united the two countries into the Kingdom of Great Britain and in 1708 the Parliament of Great Britain abolished the Privy Council of Scotland.[118][119] Thereafter there was one Privy Council of Great Britain sitting in London.[120] Ireland, on the other hand, continued to have a separate Privy Council even after the Act of Union 1800. The last appointments to the Privy Council of Ireland were made in 1922, when the greater part of Ireland separated from the United Kingdom. It was succeeded by the Privy Council of Northern Ireland, which became dormant after the suspension of the Parliament of Northern Ireland in 1972.[121]


Canada has had its own Privy Council—the King's Privy Council for Canada—since 1867.[122] While the Canadian Privy Council is specifically "for Canada", the Privy Council discussed above is not "for the United Kingdom"; to clarify the ambiguity where necessary, the latter was historically referred to as the Imperial Privy Council. Equivalent organs of state in other Commonwealth realms, such as Australia and New Zealand, are called Executive Councils.[123][124]

List of Royal members of the Privy Council

List of current Privy Counsellors

List of senior members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom

List of Privy Council orders

Clerk to the Privy Council

Court uniform and dress in the United Kingdom

Historic list of Privy Counsellors

Baronetage

Burke's Peerage & Baronetage

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ISBN

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—— (2008). . Selected Works of Noel Cox. Berkeley Electronic Press. Archived from the original on 2 March 2009. Retrieved 29 August 2008.

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doi

Gay, O.; Rees, Aa. (2005). (PDF). House of Commons Library Standard Note. SN/PC/2708. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 June 2010. Retrieved 13 May 2010.

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ISBN

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JSTOR

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cite book

Pulman, Michael (1971). The Elizabethan Privy Council in the Fifteen Seventies. University of California Press.

Rogers, David (2015). By Royal Appointment : Tales from the Privy Council—the unknown arm of Government. London: Biteback Publishing.

(2023). The Privy Council: history, functions and membership. London: House of Commons Library. Retrieved 25 September 2023.

Torrance, David

Warshaw, S. (1996). . Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-2869-9.

Powersharing: White House—Cabinet relations in the modern presidency

Privy Council Office homepage

Judicial Committee of the Privy Council homepage

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BBC: Do we need the Privy Council?

8 October 2015

BBC: Privy Council: Guide to its origins, powers and members

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"Privy Counsellors"

Guardian Comment – Roy Hattersley on the Privy Council