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Collective Ministerial Responsibility
The cabinet is theoretically a united body. Ministers are usually members of the same party who
stood and agreed on a manifesto at the general election. However personal rivalries often can
undermine this collectivity. Being head of departments, disagreements can also come from the
different interests of departments. Gordon Brown quote: “at a moment of national difficulty.. you
have to support the prime minister.”
Collective responsibility is a core principle of government. It has three main elements:
Secrecy. Ministers must keep the details of discussions in the cabinet system secret.
This ensures that sensitive info does not enter the unlicensed domain and prevents
differences of opinion from being revealed. However this is often ignored after
resignation and acts to further checks and balances on the prime minister.
Binding decisions. Once a decision has been made, it is binding to all ministers
regardless of their opinion, if ministers are unable to accept the decision, they should
resign or be expected to be dismissed, this can happen quite often.
Confidence vote. The government must resign if it is defeated in a vote of confidence
(one specifically concerning the life of the government). This last happened in 1979
when James Callaghan’s government lost a confidence vote following a Scottish
devolution bill.
Resignation of Robin Cook and Iain Duncan Smith
Collective Ministerial Responsibility 1
Collective Ministerial Responsibility
The cabinet is theoretically a united body. Ministers are usually members of the same party who
stood and agreed on a manifesto at the general election. However personal rivalries often can
undermine this collectivity. Being head of departments, disagreements can also come from the
different interests of departments. Gordon Brown quote: “at a moment of national difficulty.. you
have to support the prime minister.”
Collective responsibility is a core principle of government. It has three main elements:
Secrecy. Ministers must keep the details of discussions in the cabinet system secret.
This ensures that sensitive info does not enter the unlicensed domain and prevents
differences of opinion from being revealed. However this is often ignored after
resignation and acts to further checks and balances on the prime minister.
Binding decisions. Once a decision has been made, it is binding to all ministers
regardless of their opinion, if ministers are unable to accept the decision, they should
resign or be expected to be dismissed, this can happen quite often.
Confidence vote. The government must resign if it is defeated in a vote of confidence
(one specifically concerning the life of the government). This last happened in 1979
when James Callaghan’s government lost a confidence vote following a Scottish
devolution bill.
Resignation of Robin Cook and Iain Duncan Smith
Collective Ministerial Responsibility 1
