State the constitutional importance of ministerial responsibility.

In your opinion, should

this convention be codified? Provide your reasons.

OUTLINE
intro
● Define constitutional conventions
● Source of constitution
● Hillaire barnet definition
● Breif what essay will be about
Body 1
● Define ministerial responsibility
● Two aspects of ministerial responsibility
● Give academics

Body 2
● Define collective ministerial repsonisbtiyl
● State why its important to the constitution

Body 4
● Define individual responsibility
● State why its important to the constitution

Body 5
● State why it shouldnt be codified
● Use academics

Body 6
● State why it should be codified
● Use academics

Conclusion
● Come to a conclusion that it should be codified.
Intro
A key aspect of the United Kingdom’s constitution is that it is largely unwritten, and a
prime example of this can be seen through constitutional conventions. AV Dicey has
defined ‘constitutional conventions’ as the rules which regulate ‘the conduct of
several members of the sovereign power’ and of the ministers along with other
officials. He adds that these are not able to be classified as ‘laws’ as they are not
‘enforced by the courts’. This essay will identify the importance of the convention of
ministerial responsibility to the constitution and if the convention should be codified
through a large range of academics and evaluation.

Constitutional importance of ministerial responsibility

Professor Wade notes that the convention of ministerial responsibility highlights that
those who govern should be held accountable or responsible ‘to whom they govern’.
In other words, the convention ensures ministerial accountability to the Parliament
and eventually the public. Arguably, ministerial responsibility is one of the major
conventions in the United Kingdom’s uncodified constitution. In countries including
the United Kingdom and Canada, ministerial responsibility is founded on the
commitment promised by each minister upon membership of the Privy Council.
Furthermore, there are two aspects to the convention, namely individual and
collective ministerial responsibility. Thus, this actively demonstrates that ministers will
have both a collective and individual responsibility to Parliament.

The aspect of collective responsibility provides that all government members are
collectively responsible to the Parliament and that all members must remain loyal to
governmental policy under all circumstances. Geoffrey Marshall notes that the
convention comprises three interrelated elements. Firstly, if the government fails to
secure the confidence of the House of Commons, this would inevitably result in a
‘Motion of No Confidence’ which thus forces all members of the government to
resign. An example of this can be seen through the resignation of the British Labour
government of James Callaghan in 1979, through which a vote of no confidence was
issued by the House of Commons. Secondly, the government must speak with a
single voice, and this was deemed as the ‘unanimity rule’. It is commonly known that
it is by convention that the cabinet’s decisions must be supported by the cabinet
members even if it is intertwined with their personal views. If a member is unable to
support the cabinet, they must resign. A clear example of this is shown in Robin
Cook’s resignation from Tony Blair’s government when he found that he could not
defend the decisions to invade Iraq. Thirdly, ministers must guard any proceedings
and discussions within the Cabinet and it must be strictly confidential. An example of
this is demonstrated through the Hutton Inquiry into the situation encompassing the
death of Dr David Kelly. Here, many have been particularly suspicious about whether
the Cabinet had exaggerated the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to
provoke war with them.

From this, it is evident that the aspect of collective responsibility remains crucial to
the constitution as it allows for smoother discussion which takes place within the
government. It is likely that this exponentially decreases the number of
disagreements and oppositions to decisions within members of the government
which is crucial for the cabinet to opine that there is a practical benefit by working
collectively. Furthermore, solidarity and unity in the workings of the government
upholds the external impression of a stable and reliable government. Moreover, the
confidentiality aspect allows for a safe environment for uncommon views in order to
ensure that all policy discussions are of quality. Through the lack of disagreement
along with stable governance, the Cabinet will be able to perform excellent decision
making which is crucial in the success of exerting leadership over the United
Kingdom and the constitution.

The aspect of individual responsibility rests upon two limbs. One of the limbs holds a
minister accountable for their personal conduct. However, the conditions have
changed progressively as personal unethical behaviours do not necessarily lead to
resignation. The Cecil Parkinson scandal is of particular importance to demonstrate
this, as his affair had led him to resign in the 1990s. However, subsequently, John
Prescott was not forced to resign from office although he had faced identical
revelations. However, various academics have identified that scandals such as these
will only result in resignation if there are entanglements. For example, Cecil
Parkinson was a part of a government which was very highly morally oriented.
However, he was the parent of a child born out of wedlock, thus many had argued
that his hypocrisy resulted in his resignation.
The second limb identifies that a minister is responsible for the actions within their
department. It can be argued that this convention exists to retain anonymity of civil
servants which prevent them from being interrogated by the Parliament. It also
allows them to conduct the powers of the executive while preserving their anonymity
role as government ministers.

It can be submitted that the convention of individual responsibility exists as a crucial

role to the constitution in that it holds ministers accountable to Parliament for their
own actions or the actions of their department. The first limb proves that it is
essential in order to maintain the moral and ethical values of the constitution and to
ensure that their actions comply with the law. Furthermore, the second limb retains
that it is crucial for civil servants to be able to carry out their role effectively and
anonymously through the accountability of the government minister.

Should the convention be codified

In argument against codifying the convention, it can be argued that changing
conventions into legal rules would undoubtedly restrict the constitution’s ability to
respond to the ever changing political environment and the attitude of the public. A
few examples of codified conventions include that of the Fixed Term Parliament Act
2011 which is set to be repealed by the government as of December 2020 due to the
reasoning that it ‘stifled democracy’, and the Ministerial Code which upholds the
standards of which ministers must comply with. Moreover, codifying this would
essentially result in an outdated convention, which would inevitably lead to legislative
intervention in order to deal with the outdated nature. Thus, codifying the convention
would certainly see a decrease in the commonly flexible nature of conventions.

Further, the result of codifying any convection would be that any uncertainty as to the
components of the ‘law’ would thus be considered as legal matters rather than
political (Alex Caroll). Consequently, this would result in the interference of the
judiciary into a ‘political controversy’, which Alex Caroll identifies as being one that is
in contradiction to the British constitutional tradition.

However, codifying the ministerial responsibility convention would no doubt give rise
to legal certainty. A key issue with conventions is that the courts in the United
Kingdom only interpret law and do not enforce conventions, since, as Dicey put
forth, conventions are not necessarily ‘laws’. Thus, in circumstances which involve
constitutional conventions, the judiciary is unable to interfere and is only able to
utilize its power when the executive has breached the current existing laws. Hence,
attempting to enforce a convention in the courts would thus be rendered as
unjustifiable due to the reasoning that the judiciary is limited in the powers they
possess. It is for this reason that codifying the ministerial responsibility convention
would undoubtedly see an increase in allowing for a more effective ministerial
responsibility and accountability.

All aspects considered, the ministerial responsibility convention is one of particular

importance to the nature of the constitution as it allows for a stable, united, and
reliable government while also preserving the moral and ethical values of the
constitution. However, it can be asserted that while codifying this specific convention
has its advantages and disadvantages, transforming this into a legal rule would
inhibit the flexible nature associated with conventions while also resulting in judicial
interference. Arguably, while legal certainty may arise out of codifying the
convention, it will undoubtedly be at the price of ‘flexibility and political relevance’
which are the most valuable feathers of the constitution.