The Prime Minister And The Cabinet: The Difference Between Individual And Collective Ministerial Responsibility

Question 1

What is individual responsibility?

Answer 1

The requirement that all minsters are responsible for their own actions while in public office, where they fall short, they are expected to resign

Question 2

What is ministerial accountability?

Answer 2

The convention that ministers must explain and justify their actions and decision, particular before parliament and its committees

Question 3

What is the heart of cabinet government?

Answer 3

Collective responsibility, which unites the government to speak with one voice and a united front

Question 4

What are those who cannot accept the burden of collective responsibility obliged to do?

Answer 4

Resign and air their misgivings deem the backbenches

Question 5

What types of rule is collective responsibility?

Answer 5

A convention, best put from the Cabinet Manual

Question 6

What are some example of collective responsibility being broken?

Answer 6

During the referendums in 1975 and 2016 over Britain’s membership of the UK
In 2016 with the government’s plan to build a third runaway at Heathrow
During the 2011 alternative vote referendum

Question 7

What is collective responsibility also undermined by?

Answer 7

Ministerial leaks and open dissent, for example in 2016 and 2018 when Boris Johnson wrote articles and gave newspaper interviews in which he sets out positions undermining government policy

Question 8

What are the 5 main occasions when ministers resign from government?

Answer 8

Accepting the blame for an error or injustice within their department by civil servants and officials
Unwillingness to accept collective responsibility over policy
An inability to delver a policy promise in their own department
Personal misconduct
Political pressure

Question 9

Why do ministers nearly never fall because of policy failure and what is an example of when they did?

Answer 9

Because all major policy is agreed collectively by the cabinet and support of the prime minster and to admit the policy was flawed is to suggest the whole government failed and must share the blame collectively, for example Callaghan resigned in 1967 over the devaluation of sterling though shuffled sideways to take the post of Home Secretary

Question 10

Who do minister routinely blame?

Answer 10

Civil servants or heads of the executive agencies for operational failures

Question 11

What is an example of ministers accepting the blame and resigning?

Answer 11

The 1954 Crichel Down affair, where an independent inquiry criticised Sir Thomas Dugdale for mishandling the compulsory purchase and subsequent re-letting of 725 acres of farmland in Crichel Down. Dorset, where the land had been compulsory purchased in 1937 for £12,000 and promised to be sold back to the owners when no longer requriemted, instead the land was taken on by the Deptamrent of Agriculture and re-let for a much higher sum, though clear evidence of civil service mistake and ineefiecenty the picture was not so clear at the time and Dugdale quit

Question 12

What are some examples of ministers quitting because they were unwillingness to accept collective responsibility over policy?

Answer 12

In 2003, Robin Cook and Claire Short resigned over the Iraq War
2 Liberal Democrats, Mike Crockery and Jenny Willott, resigned in 2010 over the government policy of increasing university tuition fees to £9,000 a year
In 2016 Ian Duncan Smith resigned from Cameron’s government as work and pension secretary, attacking £4 billion of planned cuts
More than 30 Conservative ministers resigned over May’s Brexit deal, including David Davis and Dominic Raab

Question 13

What is an example of a minister resigning due to the inability to deliver a policy promise in their own department?

Answer 13

Tracey Crouch and fixed-odds betting machines, in 2018 sports minister Tracey Crouch resigned over delays to car known on maximum stakes for fixed-odds betting machines, with the chancellor, Phillip Hammond, had said in his budget speech to cut in stakes from £100 to £2 by October 2019 yet this date was pushed

Question 14

What are the 7 principles in the Ministerial Code

Answer 14

Selflessness
Integrity
Objectivity
Accountability
Openness
Honesty
Leadership

Question 15

What convention/work of authority do ministers use as basis for if they have broke personal misconduct?

Answer 15

The Ministerial Code

Question 16

Who had to resign twice under Blair in 2004 and 2005 for breaching the Ministerial Code?

Answer 16

David Blunkett, one in 2004 as Home secretary when he fast tracked a visa application for his ex-lover Kimberly Quinn who he fathered a child with, and in 2005 as pensions secretary after he accepted a position as director at DNA Bioscience without consulting the Advisory Committee n Business Appointments, this broke the objectivity principle of the Ministerial Code

Question 17

What is an example of a Liberal Democrat resigning over breaking the Ministerial Code in 2012?

Answer 17

Liberal Democrat MP Chris Hung was forced out in 2012 after he got his wife to take his speeding points to avoid a driving ban, this broke the honesty principle of the Ministerial Code

Question 18

Which Conservative broke the selflessness and leadership principle of the Ministerial Code?

Answer 18

Conservative MP Brooks Newmark left after being exposed as sending explicit images to an undercover reporter

Question 19

Which Conservative MP remained in her position as Home Secretary though breaking the Ministerial Code?

Answer 19

Priti Patel, who was found to have broken the code by bullying and swearing at some of the senior civil servants in November 2020, with a Cabinet Office inquiry finding her ‘not consistently meeting the high standard required by the Ministerial Code’’

Question 20

Which Conservative MP was forced out of the cabinet due to political pressure?

Answer 20

In September 2012, Andrew Mitchell, then chief whip, had to be forced out of the cabinet for having a go at an office and calling him a ‘Pleb’, which lead to the name of the case being called ‘Plebgate’, as the office asked him to dismount and walk his bike through a pedestrian entrance

Question 21

What is the most significant factor behind resignations?

Answer 21

Individual and not collective responsibility