Who Is Minister For Europe?- Another Confused Reshuffle

Government reshuffles used to be rather simple affairs. X would leave to spend more time with their family, Y would move to replace X and be replaced by Z etc.

What has happened over the past few years is that reshuffles have an element of confusion over them. Going back to when Labour took power in May 1997, one of the first announcements was that Frank Field would be Minister for Welfare Reform. Ah, but then we learn that initial reports that he would be in the Cabinet were wrong.

Then there was the sacking of Derry Irvine as Lord Chancellor in June 2003, and his replacement by Charles Falconer. But, Falconer was to be Constitutional Affairs Secretary as part of Labour's plans to abolish the post of Lord Chancellor. This was also a confused reshuffle as there was the question of the posts of Scottish Secretary and Welsh Secretary. Helen Liddell was sacked from the first of these and replaced by the then Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling (now the Chancellor of the Exchequer)- but Darling remained Transport Secretary. Peter Hain carried on as Welsh Secretary (a post he returned to last week), but was also made Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons.

To add to the confusion, the Scotland Office and the Wales Office were to be part of the Department of Constitutional Affairs- so was it a case that Falconer was in charge of Scottish and Welsh affairs with Darling and Hain speaking in the Commons on these, or were Darling and Hain actually in charge of the Scotland and Wales Offices?

And that wasn't all! Much primary legislation (mainly Acts of Parliament) confers specific Executive powers on a member of the Cabinet, and this is normally done by the wording such as "the Secretary of State may/shall etc.". Most Cabinet positions derive from the old post simply known as Secretary of State (back in the days when the Government let people get on with their lives), and most Cabinet ministers are techinically "the Secretary of State for..."

So, to abolish the post of Lord Chancellor, every reference to that post in every piece of legislation would have to be replaced by the words "Secretary of State".

Days after announcing that he was abolishing the post of Lord Chancellor, the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, realised it would be too much effort and Falconer became Lord Chancellor as well as being Constitutional Affairs Secretary.

Another confusing reshuffle was after the May 2005 general election, when Blair decided to move Patricia Hewitt from being Trade & Industry Secretary to Health Secretary. Hewitt's successor was to be Alan Johnson (now the Home Secretary) moved over from being Work & Pensions Secretary. However, Johnson was to be Productivity, ENergy & Industry Secretary- it took Blair about a week to realise the obvious acronym and Johnson became Trade & Industry Secretary.

And this brings us to last week's bizarre reshuffle. After vocally pledging her loyalty to the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, Caroline Flint found that she remained Minister for Europe. No problem- like any minister not getting the big promotion they wanted, scrabble around for a "matter of principle" to resign over, in this case, women in the Cabinet being treated as "window-dressing".

Brown appointed Glenys Kinnock to be Flint's successor- which means that Kinnock is the only member of her family to ever serve in Government. There is a little problem, namely Kinnock being a Member of the European Parliament for Wales.

The idea of her being an MEP might seem odd- yes, she was first elected to Strasbourg/Brussels in June 1994, and re-elected in June 1999 and June 2004, but did not contest the elections last week. Unlike the House of Commons, which is dissolved prior to the general election, the European Parliament runs from the month after election. Hence, the Parliament elected in 2004 still exists (until 11 July) and those who were defeated or retired last week are still technically MEPs.

European law forbids MEPs from serving in national governments- if an MEP did this, then they could end up voting on something as an MEP when it was before the Parliament and then voting on it again as a representative of their government when it was before the Council of Ministers. So, if Kinnock is still an MEP then she cannot be Minister for Europe.

The official Labour line is that Kinnock submitted her resignation as an MEP to the President of the Parliament, Hans-Gert Pottering, a German Christian Democrat. If so, then Pottering will have invited Labour's Gareth Williams to serve as an MEP for Wales for the weeks left of Kinnock's term.

So, is Kinnock in the government or not? Yet another reshuffle which is confused and vague.