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 to whom the negotiations with other government departments on the details of government spending are delegated, followed by the Paymaster General, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. Whilst not continuously in use, there can also be appointed a Commercial Secretary to the Treasury and an Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury. Two other officials are given the title of a Secretary to the Treasury, although neither is a government minister in the Treasury: the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury is the Government Chief Whip in the House of Commons; the "Permanent Secretary to the