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
Chancellor of the Exchequer Treasury" is not a minister but the senior civil servant in the Treasury. The chancellor is obliged to be a member of the Privy Council, and thus is styled the Right Honourable (Rt. Hon.). Because the House of Lords is excluded from Finance Bills under the Parliament Acts, the office has since the early 20th century been effectively limited to members of the House of Commons. The chancellor holds the formerly independent office of Master of the Mint as a subsidiary office. The Chancellor's official residence, since 1828, is No. 11 Downing Street. In 1997, the then First and Second