Life Peerages Act 1958 figures, for example the former Secretary of State for India and earlier for Air, Viscount Stansgate. The last Prime Minister and the last non-royal to be created an Earl was paradoxically one of the 1958 Act's proponents, Harold Macmillan, on Margaret Thatcher's advice, in the 1980s. Since her time, only members of the Royal Family have been granted new hereditary peerages. In 1999, during the debate which secured the removal of the constitutional functions of most hereditary peers, the Minister for Constitutional Affairs, Geoff Hoon stated: After this agreed with a question from fellow Labour MP, Mark Fisher which stated:
Prime Minister of New Zealand role of Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage; and John Key was Minister for Tourism. Although no longer likely to be the minister of foreign affairs, the prime minister is still responsible for welcoming foreign heads of government, visiting leaders overseas, and attending Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings. Conventionally, the prime minister is the responsible minister for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC), which is tasked with supporting the policy agenda of Cabinet through policy advice and the coordination of the implementation of key government programmes. Under the Fifth National Government the DPMC expanded to give prime