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Collective Cabinet Responsibility

What is it? Collective Cabinet Responsibility highlights the agreement of government as well as its responsibility to Parliament.

What is it for? It is needed for the government to present a united front to Parliament and the public in order to keep confidence. A government that does not follow the convention by publicly disagreeing about certain policy matters will be viewed as weak and will be challenged about its continued stay in office.

Lord Salisbury’s definition (1878) ‘For all that passes in Cabinet every member of it who does not resign is absolutely and irretrievably responsible and has no right afterwards to say that he agreed in one case to a compromise, while in another he was persuaded by his colleagues…It is only on the principle that absolute responsibility is undertaken by every member of the Cabinet, who, after a decision is arrived at, remains a member of it, that the joint responsibility of Ministers to Parliament can be upheld and one of the essential principles of parliamentary

In order for the convention to work, two rules must be accepted-

1) Once an agreement is reached in Cabinet, all members- and many outside Cabinet- are forced to voice their support of the decision. There must be no criticism of the decision in public by a member of Cabinet- regardless of whether or not they were part of the discussion. If a decision is reached by the Prime Minister in Cabinet Committee or the Inner Cabinet when only a small amount of b t th d i i

2) The records of Cabinet discussions are absolutely secret. The fact that Cabinet records are protected by confidentiality gives the opportunity for members of Cabinet to discuss matters easily as they have the knowledge that their own point of view, whatever the decision, is protected from the public eye.

These rules were put into the Ministerial Code (2010): ‘Collective responsibility requires that ministers should be able to express their views frankly in the expectation that they can argue freely in private while maintaining a united front when decisions have been reached. This in turn requires that the privacy of opinions expressed in Cabinet and Ministerial Committees should be maintained.’

The Westland Helicopter fiasco 1986 Westland, a helicopter manufacturing company, was threatened with closure. Luckily, the government focused on trying to prevent this. Two plans were put forward; one of which was from an American view and the other from a European view; Mr Heseltine who was the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, wanted the European option to be used. However, Margaret Thatcher, the then Prime Minister of the UK agreed with the American plan. Mr Heseltine was told that he would be able to put forward his preferred plan to a Cabinet meeting. Unfortunately, Thatcher cancelled the meeting and Mr. Heseltine resigned. In addition, Leon Brittan also resigned from government for breaching the convention that the advice of Law Officers to the Crown should not be disclosed.

Events involving Collective Cabinet Responsibility Unsurprisingly, the Iraq War of 2003 caused two resignations from Cabinet. Robin Cook, who was the leader of the House of Commons and former Foreign Secretary, resigned in March 2003 because he did not agree with the government’s decision to go to war. As well as Cook, Clare Short, who was the International Development Secretary, resigned in May 2003 because she did not agree with the government’s position on creating a legitimate Iraqi government after the war. In 2014, Baroness Warsi resigned from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office because the government did not criticise Israeli’s attacks on Gaza. Warsi’s was the first ministerial resignation because of conflicting views since those of Robin Cook and Clare Short. In 2016, the Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, resigned in protest against the Chancellor’s proposed cuts in disability benefits and Lord O’Neill of Gatley resigned because of economic policy. Similar to the convention of individual responsibility, there are disagreements about the status and extent of collective responsibility. Due to the fact that there are so many exceptions to collective cabinet responsibility, many have questioned whether it is a convention at all within the classical definition or whether the term convention should be discarded and replaced by the words practice or usage, something that was suggested by Dicey (1885) and Marshall and Moodie (1971).

What are ‘Agreements to Differ’? ‘Agreements to differ’ make it possible for ‘Collective Cabinet Responsibility’ to be ignored in the event where political disagreements in Cabinet are so severe that the Prime Minister finds it more useful to ignore the convention than to have it broken by members of Cabinet. Between 1932-1933, the national coalition government had opposing views over economic policy, especially tariff duties. Four members of Cabinet put forward their resignations but withdrew them after the Prime Minister, Ramsey MacDonald, decided to ignore the convention and allow the disagreeing members to express their views publicly. This occurred again in 1975 with the Labour government of Harold Wilson. Parliament was faced with mixed views about the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the European Community. Wilson created a waiver of the convention, which was known as an ‘agreement to differ’. However, the waiver was limited to only the single issue of continued membership of the European Community. Similar to this, a waiver was once again put in place prior to the 2016 referendum on membership of the European Union. The general election of May 2010 resulted in no political party having enough number of seats in the House of Commons to enable it to form a government. The Conservative Party, which was the party with the greatest number of seats, created a coalition with the Liberal Democrat Party. However, due to the differences between the two parties over a variety of political issues, there had to be a relaxation of the rules on collective responsibility on areas where there is most disagreement. If this did not happen, conflicts could arise and threaten the stability of the government.

Cabinet Papers The secrecy of Cabinet discussion is protected by the ban on members of Cabinet expressing their views. One of the main rules about the confidentiality of Cabinet papers are that the current government may not release or publish the papers of a previous government without the consent of the former Prime Minister. In addition, the papers of a previous government, such as Labour, cannot be revealed to a government of a different party, such as the Conservatives. It may seem strange that an incoming government cannot gain access to the papers of the past government and it may be wondered how the government is supposed to act properly when dealt with issues in any policy area if denied so much data. However, the rule is right because an outgoing government might be tempted to remove potentially sensitive documentation if it feared that a new government would make political capital out of it, which is the influence and trust that a politician has with the public as well as other political officials. Lord Hunt (1989) stated that there are three kinds of papers are excluded from collective cabinet responsibility: a) Papers which, even if they are not publicly available, can be seen to be in the public domain. This includes letters that are sent by former Ministers to trade associations or trade unions etc. or to Members of Parliament about constituency cases, or to the people of the public. b) Papers, apart from frankly personal messages, which deal with matters that are known to foreign governments, such as messages about intergovernmental negotiations c) Opinions of the Law Officers which are written and are more legal rather than political documents.

Ministerial Memoirs The publication of a former Minister’s diaries of his political life has issues for the rules of Cabinet secrecy. In 1976, the Radcliffe Committee Report stated that: “The author should be free to use his ministerial experience for the purpose of giving an account of his own work, subject to restrictions on three separate categories of information: 1) He must not reveal anything that contravenes the requirements of national security operative at the time of this proposed publication 2) He must not make disclosures injurious to this country’s relations with other nations; 3) He must refrain from publishing information destructive of the confidential relationships on which our system of government is based. The final restriction relates to opinions or attitudes of Cabinet colleagues, advice given to him by colleagues and criticism of those working for him in office” The Ministerial Code forbids the writing and publication of memoirs by a Minister who is still in office. However, with former Ministers, the Code states that a draft of the manuscript is given to the Cabinet Secretary before it is published. This issue was highlighted in the case of Attorney General v Jonathan Cape Ltd (1976) when the executors of the estate of Richard Crossman, who was a former Labour Cabinet member, wanted to publish his diaries. Unsurprisingly, the government wanted an injunction to stop the publication.

Recognising the convention of collective responsibility, Lord Widgery commented: “I find overwhelming evidence that the doctrine of joint responsibility is generally understood and practiced and equally strong evidence that it is on occasion ignored”. Due to the formal recognition to the convention, the injunction was denied, and the diaries were published....