Apparently one of the members of Tony Blair’s cabinet holds the title “chancellor of the Duchy of Lanchaster.” Can anyone tell me what this person’s job is and whether it has anything to do with a dukedom or Lancaster?
Here’s Wikipedia’s summary of the position.
Briefly, some of the English lands belonging to Elizabeth II are not held in right of her being Queen of the United Kingdom, but as being heir of the [url=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Lancaster”]Duchy of Lancaster. There are a few very limited duties associated with the job, which can be completed in a few hours per year – appointing Sheriffs for Lancaster, for example. The title therefore is open to name some competent politician to the Cabinet without placing him (or her) in charge of a particular government department, so that he or she will be free to work on a particular area presently needing political expertise but not such as to require a permanent government department. (By way of parallel for Americans, the findings of the 9/11 Commission indicate that we need to remodel our intelligence services to remove the “territoriality” that led to the failures to exchange information before 9/11. Careful analysis of who does what and how they should be integrated is needed, and should be done by someone with some authority and no particular ties to a single group – but it doesn’t require creation of a new Department equivalent to State or the Interior to conduct that analysis. Naming someone to a special temporary Cabinet-level post would be one good way to handle this.)
With certain other positions (e.g., Lord Privy Seal, Paymaster-General), it stands as a historical title that gives Prime Ministers some flexibility in addressing the needs of the U.K. through appointments of people to such specialized, short-term assignments. Clement Attlee, for example, was Lord Privy Seal during Churchill’s WWII Coalition government, giving him, as leader of the Labour Party, a leading position in that government, while at the same time not tying him down to a particular range of duties.