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CABINET PAPERS:

Complete classes from the CAB & PREM series in the Public Record Office

Series Three: CAB 128 & CAB 129 - Cabinet Conclusions and Cabinet Memoranda,

1945 and following

Part 7: The Heath Government - June 1970 - March 1974

CAB 129 - General Character

CAB 129 is the complimentary series to CAB 128 and contains the Cabinet Memoranda.  These are papers on specific problems and issues facing the government which are written by Ministers and distributed to members of the Cabinet as a basis for discussion.  The Cabinet Memoranda tended to be produced by Ministers with the backing of their relevant Department and as such represent the most distilled and pertinent output of each, often summarising complex issues and statistics in order to present a certain argument or course of action.  The Cabinet Memoranda are the perfect foil to the Cabinet Minutes.  Where the strength of the latter lies in their brevity and ability to communicate a sense of the government’s overall agenda, the former concentrate on providing succinct answers to specific (often complex) issues.

As with CAB 128, the material in CAB 129 is arranged chronologically and each item is identified by a unique code.  The National Archives/Public Record Office piece numbers refer to the volume in which the papers are bound.  The Detailed Listing in this guide provides a list of all the titles of the papers contained within each volume (usually about fifty per volume) and the Minister responsible for its authorship.

The reference numbers work in a similar way to those in CAB 128; a one letter code, followed by a number in brackets denoting the year, which in turn is followed by the number of the paper. 

Thus CP (73) 128 refers to the one hundred and twenty-eighth Cabinet Paper written in 1973.  After the code-number is listed the title of the memorandum and its author, in this case it is: Oil Supplies: Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. This is attached as a sample document.

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