The payroll vote is an important, if often overlooked, feature of UK politics which provides some valuable insights into the nature of the executive-legislature relationship and parliamentary scrutiny of the government - two key topics for A level Politics students. The term ‘payroll vote’ in UK politics defies precise definition. Put simply, it refers to the group of MPs who, by holding official positions within an administration, are either obliged or informally expected to support the government. Some ‘payroll vote’ MPs are bound by collective responsibility and hold a variety of positions with different levels of seniority and pay (some roles are unpaid). In recent decades though the term has been used to include MPs with official positions that assume loyalty but do not formally require them to back the government. For the government of the day, the payroll vote provides a useful mechanism to strengthen executive dominance over the legislature and minimize the impact of backbench rebellions in the Commons over policy decisions. Conversely, critics argue that the payroll vote entrenches a culture of loyalty to the government that undermines rigorous parliamentary scrutiny of the executive’s measures and actions.

Who belongs to the payroll vote?

Traditionally, the payroll vote refers to ministers and parliamentary private secretaries (PPSs) who are bound by collective responsibility to support and vote with the government. Indeed, according to the ministerial code, these MPs should refrain from ‘associating themselves with recommendations critical of, or embarrassing to, the government.’ The wider payroll vote is made up of this traditional ‘core’ and other non-ministerial placeholders, including those whose loyalty to the government is expected rather than required. This wider non-ministerial payroll vote is more difficult to define because executive decisions often ensure this group is fluid rather than fixed. Recently, for example, prime ministers have appointed MPs as unpaid trade envoys to promote UK trade abroad. By August 2025, the present Labour government had 28 such envoys. These positions appear to come under the payroll vote umbrella because when three Labour trade envoys (Rosena Allin Khan, Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Mohammed Yasin) voted against the government on the Universal Credit Bill in July 2025, they were removed from their posts. Keir Starmer has extended the payroll vote further by appointing some Labour backbenchers as ‘mission champions’ to assist ministers in the delivery of the executive’s long-term missions.

How big is the payroll vote?

Over the last 60 years or so, the traditional payroll vote (ministers and PPSs) has increased from 101 (1960) to 131 (August 2025). Furthermore, since Theresa May’s premiership (2016-19), the wider payroll vote has grown. She tripled the number of Conservative trade envoys in the Commons and also increased the number of Tory MPs acting as party vice-chairs, mainly in an attempt to ‘lock in’ as many pro-government Conservative votes as possible in the turbulent parliamentary period following the 2016 Brexit referendum result. Most recently, the Labour government has boosted the overall size of the payroll vote with the appointment of more PPSs, mission champions and trade envoys. The tables below illustrate the shifting size of the wider payroll vote since the early 1980s and the actual composition of the wider payroll vote in March 2025.

Is the size of the payroll vote restricted?

According to the provisions of the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act (1975) and the Houseof Commons Disqualification Act (1975), a total of 109 paid ministers can sit in parliament (either in the Commons or the Lords), with a maximum of 95 ministers in the lower house. There are, however, no formal limits on the number of PPSs, trade envoys, party chairs and mission champions that can be appointed, a factor that has encouraged the growth of the payroll vote in recent years. Back in 2010, the Public Administration select committee argued that ‘the ministerial side of government has now grown too large’, asserted that this lack of restriction made parliamentary scrutiny of the executive more difficult and called for the payroll vote to be limited to 15 percent of the Commons – in other words 98 (out of 650) MPs. In a similar vein, a 2011 report by the same select committee concluded that only secretaries of state should have PPSs. If this recommendation had been implemented in September 2025, for example, the number of PPSs would have fallen from 52 to 18.

Why has Starmer increased the size of the payroll vote?

Under Starmer’s government, the payroll vote currently accounts for 27 percent of all MPs and nearly half (44 percent) of Labour members in the Commons. Political commentators have maintained that the Prime Minister has expanded the payroll vote since 2024 for two basic reasons, namely (1) to reward Labour MPs for their years of service in opposition during the long period of Conservative political ascendancy (2010-2024), and (2) to protect his government, following the party’s 2024 landslide victory in terms of seats, from potentially damaging Labour backbench rebellions since the latter arguably constitute the most threatening form of opposition for the current administration.