It stipulates that government ministers, in particular the cabinet, must publicly agree and abide by government decisions irrespective of their personal views and that they should not disclose what was said privately amongst government ministers in reaching these decisions. Should a minister be incapable of doing this, they are expected to resign. Indeed, David Cameron suspended the Convention in relation to the referendum on EU membership , and had previously agreed with Nick Clegg as part of the Coalition Agreement to suspend it in relation to key areas of policy where the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats disagreed.
Constitutional conventions, as the name suggests, are political rules which embody constitutional principles and values. If a constitutional convention does not have a constitutional purpose, they should not be called as such. Historically , Collective Responsibility was developed in order to protect government from an interfering Monarch seeking to divide his ministers.
This purpose, however, is no longer relevant today as the UK is now firmly a constitutional monarchy whereby the role of the Monarch has been minimised in favour of ministers. Following this, the question arises as to whether there is a continued constitutional purpose for the Convention in the modern era. If it is the case that Collective Responsibility only confers a right exclusively on the Prime Minister to have her ministers agree publicly with her policy and decisions, without any purported benefit to Parliament or the public, why should it matter constitutionally if her ministers refuse to do so and she is incapable of enforcing her right?
A better understanding of the modern Convention of Collective Responsibility, and one that I have made elsewhere , is that the purpose of the Convention is to provide a standard of behaviour — Cabinet solidarity — by which government and its suitability for office can be judged by both Parliament and the public. After all, the Queen appoints as Prime Minister the person who can command the confidence of the House of Commons, and that person must maintain that confidence if they wish to remain as Prime Minister.
Should a government instead appear divided, the House of Commons may reasonably conclude that it is no longer worthy of its confidence. If so, as stipulated under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act , a vote of no confidence could be held, and a new alternative government could be formed either within a two week period or, if necessary, after a general election. This reading takes a wider view of the Convention than that by Marshall: it is not merely an entitlement of the Prime Minister, but a measure for the House of Commons.
On this reading of Collective Responsibility, it would be premature to say that the Convention is broken as a result of Brexit. Although some cabinet members abstained on the above-mentioned vote, and neither resigned nor were sacked as a result, this suggests only a minor modification of the Convention of Collective Responsibility whereby abstention removes the need for resignation.
This indeed appears to have been the view of the government. Search for: 'collective responsibility' in Oxford Reference ». All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice.
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Also Ministers can sometimes openly breach CR and get away with it…for a while. Ministers often covertly breach CR by leaking documents to newspapers. Prime Ministers often insist on ministers presenting a united front, while paying little regard to collective decision-making see later. Company Reg no: VAT reg no Main menu.
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