Ministerial Responsibility: IMR Flashcards
1
Q
Individual ministerial responsibility:
A
- Members of the cabinet take ultimate responsibility for what occurs within their department, including both administrative and policy failures. They are also individually responsible to the prime minister for their personal conduct.
- Required to justify the actions during parliamentary debate, in written responses.
- Take responsibility for serious administrative or policy mistakes that happened in their department and of which they should have been aware.
2
Q
Ministerial Code of Conduct:
A
- Maintain high standards of behaviour and behave in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety.
- Harassing, bullying or discriminatory behaviour wherever it takes place is not to be tolerated.
- Ministers have a duty to Parliament to account and be held account.
- Ministers give accurate information and correct any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.
5.Ministers only remain in office for so long as they retain the confidence of the Prime Minister.
3
Q
Administrative Failure:
A
- In 1954, Sir Thomas Dugdale resigned as a minister of agriculture over the Crichel Down affair.
- His department failed to return land to its rightful owner after it had been compulsorily purchased to be a bombing range before WW2.
- His civil servants were mainly to blame.
- He resigned telling Parliament ‘must accept full responsibility’
4
Q
Policy Failure: Norman Lamont
A
- Chancellor of the exchequer, 1992
- Forced to abandon the Exchange rate Mechanism, having raised interest by 5% in a desperate attempt to retain membership.
- Most closely associated with this policy failure.
- Refused to resign because the policy he was pursuing was also that of the PM.
- John Major had not resigned neither should him.
5
Q
Policy Failure: Michael Howard
A
- Home secretary 1995
- Widely criticised for not resigning following a series of mass breakouts from Pankhurst jail.
- Significant administrative failings within the Home Office.
- Howard the sacked the director general of the Prison Service, Derek Lewis, since he had been in operational control of the policy that had led to the escapes.
- Lewis subsequently won a case of wrongful dismissal against Howard.
6
Q
Misleading: Amber Rudd
A
- 29 April 2018, Theresa May’s home secretary resigned when she admitted she had misled the Home Affairs Select Committee and the House of Commons.
- She said there were no Home office targets for removing illegal immigrants.
- Attacks from the Labour party and the media undermined her, position was untenable.
- Must give accurate information to Parliament and correct any mistakes at the earliest opportunity.
7
Q
Policy Failure: Gavin Williamson
A
- Education secretary, 2020
- In 2020, because of the pandemic schools were required to provide A-level and GCSE candidates with centre-assessed grades, which would then be modified with an algorithm.
- When this led to many A-level pupils not achieving the grades they require the university, Williamson abandoned the algorithm and gave the grades purely on their centre assessment.
- Sally Collier, chief regulator of Ofqual, resigned because of her responsibility in the policy failure.
- Williamson remained in his position until, 2021 when Boris Johnson dismissed him.
8
Q
Scandal: John Profumo
A
- Secretary of State for War, 1963
- Rising star of the Macmillan government.
- In 1963, the press uncovered evidence of his affair with 19 year old Christine Keeler.
- She had been in a relationship with soviet spy, Yevgeny Ivanov.
- Having lied to Parliament about his relationship with her he resigned.
9
Q
Scandal: Chris Huhne
A
- Energy secretary 2012
- Forced to resign from the coalition government over media claims that he had perverted the course of justice by colluding with his former wife, Vicky Pryce, so that she took responsibility for his speeding crime.
- Both were convicted and sent to prison.
10
Q
Scandal: Priti Patel
A
- International Development Secretary 2017
- Resigned from Theresa May’s government over a series of unofficial private meetings she had with the Israeli ministers, including the prime minister Netanyahu.
- Failed to report the meetings to Parliament.
- Broke any significant content should be passed back to the department as soon as possible after the event.
11
Q
Scandal: Matt Hancock
A
- Health secretary, 2021
2.The Sun published photographs of the secretary of state for health, Matt Hancock kissing a colleague Gina Coladangelo. - Flagrant disregard for Covid distancing regulations, outcry forced him to resign.
12
Q
Scandal: Suella Braverman
A
- On 19 October 2022, resigned as a home secretary having used her personal email account to send an official document to a colleague.
- She resigned and launched an attack on Liz Truss, expressing her concerns about the direction of government.
- She was reinstated by Rishi Sunak on 25 October.
13
Q
How does IMR depend on the power of the government?
A
- In 2018, TM was weakened by her GE performance in 2017, Brexit and Grenfell, had little choice to accept Rudd’s resignation.
- Lacked the political capital to protect a vulnerable minister.
- In 2020, a cabinet office report stated that Priti Patel’s treatment of Sir Philip Rutman had not ‘met the high standards required by the Ministerial Code’
- Strong case for her to resign, Boris Johnson at the height of his power, stated that she continued to have his ‘continued support’
14
Q
Focus: Boris Johnson
A
- In May 2022, senior civil servant Sue Gray accused No.10 of ‘failures of leadership and judgement’.
- Soon after he changed the ministerial code from ‘integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency’ to it would be too harsh to ‘expect any breach, however minor, should lead automatically to resignation or dismissal’
- In June 41% of Conservative MPs called up Johnson to resign.
- Refused and only accepted when 62/179 ministers in his government resigned in the wake of the Chris Pincher scandal.
