Responsibility To Parliament

Abstract

Abstract Some of the issues to be explored in this Chapter have been examined. or touched on, already. Thus, for instance, in the chapter on conflicts of interest a number of matters which might affect the responsibility of Ministers to Parliament were high lighted, especially in relation to the consequences of the early work of the Committee on Standards of Conduct in Public Life.1 This Chapter is concerned with the details of ministerial responsibility to Parliament. Ministers’ collective responsibility-for the Government’s policies and for their ministerial colleagues and Ministers’ individual responsibility for their own actions are examined in the first section. Inevitably some breaches of the doctrine result in loss of office, but others do not, and the ways in which that fate may be avoided are looked at in the second section. Ministers are not always responsible for things that go wrong, and the recent development of new constitutional mechanisms (such as executive agencies) can blur the line back from the wrong complained of to a responsible Minister; and older constitutional notions (such as agreements to differ, and ministerial over lords) could come to be used again. Those matters are also considered in the second section. Collective responsibility implies collective secrecy: and the easing of the strains which the obligation of confidentiality imposes, through leaking and briefing, are considered in the final section.