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CONCEPT OF MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY - Coggle Diagram
CONCEPT OF MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY
INDIVIDUAL MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Includes two main aspects - answerability, ministers have an obligation to explain and defend the work of their departments in Parliament, and accountability, ministers are responsible for their own and their officials conduct and for departmental policy, should resign if serious faults are revealed in any of these matters.
EROSION OF THE PRINCIPLE - ministers are no longer prepared to accept responsibility for errors of poor performance by their departments. Unless a major error can be directly attributed to the minister and is very serious, ministers don't normally resign. Ministers are prepared to lay the blame on lower-ranking officials and civil servants. In the past, these unelected officials were protected by IMR. Now up to the PM to decide whether a minister should be removed from office under the doctrine.
Since 1997 a ministerial code has been published by administrations laying out the expectations placed on govt ministers. One element of these is - 'do not knowingly mislead Parliament' (if you do resign).
In 1994 Nolan Principles outlined 7 principles that public servants should uphold: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, leadership.
Can resign due to personal misconduct or policy failure.
The convention is almost completely reliant on the self-regulation of ministers and places the PM in the position of 'judge, jury and executioner'. The potential answer is to replace the convention with an independent body with powers to enforce the ministerial code.
EXAMPLES OF IMR BEING IGNORED
In 2020 Priti Patel was found by an independent investigation of bullying civil servants. However, Patel is popular with the right of the party, so the PM didn't ask for her resignation, and she didn't offer it. It lead to the author of the independent report, Sir Alex Allen, to resigning as his findings were ignored.
In 2020, Gavin Williamson used school predictions and an algorithm to determine the grades of GCSE and A level students, but faced considerable backlash and had to revert to just school predictions. This was a policy failure, and while Williamson didn't resign, the head of the QCA did.
Private mistakes by ministers can also come under the code. Matt Hancock resigned as Health Secretary (2021) for breaching his own department's COVID regulations. However, Johnson made a mistake over the details of who paid for the renovations of his flat and decided he shouldn't resign despite the party being fined, and Johnson has been fined for partygate and decided he shouldn't resign.
Chris Grayling remained in govt for a number of years despite a number of high-profile issues: 2010 saying B&Bs should be able to turn away gay couples, overseeing changes to rail time-tables that caused chaos in 2014, 2015 the high court ruled his ban on prisoners receiving books from friends and relatives was unlawful, and giving a ferry contract to a company that had never owned a ferry.
COLLECTIVE MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY
In the past decade, CMR has been suspended three times, so ministers were allowed to oppose government policy in public without having to resign. Two occurred during the coalition, and one during the Brexit Referendum.
It was suspended under the coalition for the AV Referendum, and for the Levinson Report.
This implies government solidarity (put on a common front for public consumption), secrecy (discussion of policy should take place in private so a full exchange of views is possible), if the government is defeated in the House of Commons on a no confidence vote, the whole cabinet should resign, and if a minister disagrees with government and is unable to defend govt policy in public, they should resign.
David Cameron set aside the convention for the 2016 EU Referendum, and ministers continued to speak out against the govt throughout the Brexit negotiations.
In principle it states that 'decisions made by the Cabinet or Cabinet committee are binding on all members of the government (down to the lowliest member).
Prior to the decision of Boris Johnson to introduce his 'living with COVID' plan, there was fierce debate between the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and the Health Secretary Sajid Javid about the plan to remove free Lateral Flow Tests. Whilst they disagreed on this issue, both then supported it in public afterwards. This strengthens government as it becomes more careful and more deliberative.
EXAMPLES OF CMR
In 2006, Tom Watson, the Under-secretary of state for defense, resigned as he signed a letter calling on Blair to resign.
In 1990, Sir Geoffrey Howe resigned as Leader of the House of Commons because he opposed policy on Europe.
In 2016, Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary or State for Work and Pensions, resigned as he opposed cuts to disability benefits in budget.
Robin Cook resigned over the decision to invade Iraq without a second UN resolution in 2003 - "it is for that reason alone, and with a heavy heart, that I resign from the government."
PROBLEMS WITH CMR
Sometimes a parties 'big beasts' case a big issue for CMR as they are often too powerful to sack. May appointed Johnson as Foreign Secretary in an attempt to reduce his potential threat as a rival and critic. As Foreign Secretary he briefed against May, wrote damaging articles in the Daily Telegraph but he wasn't sacked. When he resigned in July 2018 this caused significant damage to May.
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, his Chancellor of the Exchequer, would brief against each other in the media. Recently this was seen with Johnson and Sunak with reports appearing about splits over spending to ease the cost of living crisis and leaks about Sunak's non-Dom status.
Ministers anonymously brief against each other or leak information whilst never directly breaking the convention publicly.
Ministers can't be openly honest about their view on policies, which may stifle debate within govt.
Resignations under the doctrine are dramatic events which may seriously undermine govt.
JUDGEMENT
IMR has limited significance. It relies on the honour of ministers (in short supply?). A PM won't enforce it if doing so will damage them. As is clearly demonstrated at the moment the PMs role as the ultimate adjudicator of the code means that it can be unenforceable especially if it's the PM who broke it.
Whilst PMs do sometimes have to relax it generally ministers are bound by it.
CMR is more important than IMR in UK politics. It's sometimes relaxed but only through necessity and not necessarily weakness but rather to ensure things can move forwards or when issues cross party lines. CMR could mean debate behind closed doors but a consistent message in public avoiding confusion and helping accountability.