Chancellor of the Exchequer his duty to distribute as fairly as he can." The chancellor has considerable control over other departments as it is the Treasury which sets Departmental Expenditure Limits. The amount of power this gives to an individual chancellor depends on his personal forcefulness, his status within his party and his relationship with the prime minister. Gordon Brown, who became chancellor when Labour came into Government in 1997, had a large personal power base in the party. Perhaps as a result, Tony Blair chose to keep him in the same position throughout his ten years as prime minister; making Brown an unusually
Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury is a junior ministerial post in the British Treasury, ranked below the First Lord of the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Paymaster General and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and alongside the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. It ranks at Parliamentary Secretary level and is not a Cabinet office. Unlike the other posts of Secretary to the Treasury, it is only used occasionally, normally when the post of Paymaster General is allocated to a Minister outside the Treasury. The office