Public - ministerial responsibility PDF

Preview

Summary

Ministerial responsibility essay...

Description

Discuss the range of individual and collective responsibilities of government ministers, together with the means by which they are established and enforced. Government ministers exercise political power in the UK constitution, and are accountable to Parliament for their actions. Two constitutional conventions operate to encourage accountability: individual ministerial responsibility and collective ministerial responsibility. This essay will explore the range of individual and collective responsibilities of government ministers, and will reach a conclusion that these constitutional conventions are inadequate in ensuring ministers’ accountability to Parliament. Collective ministerial responsibility rests on the main practices of the Ministerial Code: 1) confidentiality, meaning all government decisions take place in private to encourage honest discussion; 2) confidence, the need to present the appearance of a strong government; 3) decisions reached by the Cabinet or Ministerial Committees are binding on all government; 4) Minister solidarity, a minister who is unable to support government policy has to resign from office. This is to ensure the government is unified and possesses a strong coherence. Ministers must accept responsibility for the policies and decisions of the government, even if they did not develop or take them and even if they disagree with them. For instance, Jo Johnson MP, the former Transport Secretary, has a new position (about Brexit) which does not follow the Government point, therefore he had to quit the cabinet. Similarly, in 2014, Baroness Warsi resigned because she could no longer support the government’s stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict. However, there are some matters of public interest on which the government does not have a collective view — it goes to a ‘free vote’ whereby whips do not interfere e.g. bills on same-sex marriage. Collective responsibility is important to ensure that there is effective accountability to Parliament, as the government as a whole is obliged to provide information and explain its actions in parliament to defend its policies. There have been departures from the practice of collective responsibility. For instance, in the 1970s, PMs were obliged to suspend collective responsibility because of internal disagreements. Harold Wilson allowed dissenting cabinet members to campaign against remaining in the then European Economic Commission in 1975, but not when representing government in Parliament. Bogdanor states that ‘Collective responsibility is a maxim of political prudence as it is a convention of the constitution’. This departure is likely to occur with increasing frequency in Scotland and Wales or in England if there is a period of multiparty politics. – governments are less likely to be unified ideologically. Next, the convention of individual ministerial responsibility requires both that there be some obligation on ministers to give an account of their actions and policies to Parliament, and that if fault is revealed, there must be some means for Parliament to exact some kind of redress. Acts by government departmental officials are in law synonymous with acts of the minister himself and for every branch of government business, there is a minister to explain and account for decisions (Carltona v Commissioners of Work). Parliament's affirmation of ministerial responsibility via Commons Resolution (1997) provided guidelines on the duty that Ministers owe to Parliament, for their decisions and actions of themselves and their department. Further, ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the PM. It is also vital that ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament; only refusing to provide information if disclosure would not be in the public interest. Section 3 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 now provides statutory access to official information. Notable resignations due to criticism of ministerial conduct include 1982 Lord Carrington (Falklands); 1986 Leon Britton (leak of confidential advice);

and 2004 Beverley Hughes (lying about knowledge of visas being granted on the basis of false documents). Though it is questionable as to whether this doctrine has been effective, as the Arms to Iraq Affair saw junior ministers change guidelines on export ban to Iraq (without informing senior ministers of Parliament), effectively seen as lying to Parliament. Yet, no ministers resigned. The next part of the essay will explore to what extent the conventions of collective and individual ministerial responsibilities are established and enforced. The codification of the Ministerial Code has also established an exhaustive list of rules, making it easier to enforce and relate back to. We can clarify and describe precisely the consensus insofar as it exists, which resolves ambiguity between ministers and Parliament. However, the Code is perhaps best seen as ‘lore not law’; as ‘constitutional window-dressing’. Since conventions are social rules with no legal implications, they are sustained by a consistent practice and a general acceptance that ministers should abide. This can be seen as not strongly enforced since there is no legal regulation. However, for ministers, the reasons in favour of doing what the convention says outweigh the cons and there might be consequences. The social and political pressure and negative reactions bring these ministers into line. For instance, Amber Rudd resigned as Home Secretary in April 2018 after she misled Parliament on the issue of illegal immigration. Select Committees were also introduced in 1979; their role is advisory and their method of work is inquisitorial. Parliamentary Questions to ministers are another way establishing these conventions and ensuring ministers are held accountable to their decisions. Criticism of this includes the fact that the government is unduly secretive, and ministers are reluctant to provide information. Thus, ill-informed debates would not be an effective means of holding accountability. The New Public Management (NPM) saw a new challenge to ministerial responsibility, entailing 'a further truncation of ministerial responsibility as governmental activities are transferred to the private sector' (Turpin). Government functions being outsourced to executive agencies made the issue of accountability more difficult. This was demonstrated in the Howard-Lewis affair. Howard forced Lewis to resign instead of himself, claiming he was not involved in the prison’s operational activities, and merely gave policy guidelines to the private prison agency. It created an explicit division between responsibility for 'policy making' and 'administration'. The extra layers of governance with the participation of private companies blurs the lines of who is in charge and who is accountable. In conclusion, though there have been successes through the individual and collective ministerial responsibility conventions, this essay has exposed that it is no longer effectively enforced and increasingly out of date. The unfortunate reality of the convention and the NPM is that it protects government ministers from political accountability as long as the decision was made from a department working at arm’s length from the central government. The practical workings of ministerial responsibility are divorced from the theory. 68...