Collective Ministerial Responsibility
Political Studies: Edexcel A Level, topic 10.2.2
Collective Ministerial Responsibility
Collective ministerial responsibility is a convention that cabinet members must publicly support the decisions made by the cabinet.
Collective ministerial responsibility
- Under collective ministerial responsibility, ministers who fail to publicly support cabinet policies must resign from the government.
- In 2018, Boris Johnson resigned as Foreign Secretary because he opposed the government’s Chequers Brexit plan.
Advantages
- Collective ministerial responsibility ensures the government appears united and that ministers support all other government members.
- Collective ministerial responsibility ensures a strong government as it means the government has a clear official position on policies.
- In 2013, Liberal Democrat ministers sided with Conservative ministers in opposing a Mansion Tax, which they had previously supported, which ensured a strong coalition government.
Disadvantages
- Collective ministerial responsibility means that ministers have to defend policies they do not agree with, meaning policies can be forced upon them by the prime minister.
- Several members of Tony Blair’s Cabinet later claimed they had limited opportunity to challenge the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
- In 2022, disagreements over economic policy contributed to Cabinet resignations during Liz Truss’s premiership, showing limits to collective unity.
Relaxing collective responsibility
- In cases where the prime minister may want to keep a politician in the cabinet but knows they cannot support a particular issue, they may relax collective ministerial responsibility.
- David Cameron suspended collective responsibility during the 2016 EU referendum, allowing ministers to campaign for either Leave or Remain.
Test yourself on Collective Ministerial Responsibility
Which of these is an advantage of collective ministerial responsibility?
In 2016, for the EU referendum campaign, did PM David Cameron uphold or suspend collective ministerial responsibility?