This detailed topic explainer is designed to help students understand collective responsibility and be aware of a range of examples

What is collective responsibility?

Collective responsibility is a constitutional convention which emerged in the 18th century and serves as a key element of the contemporary UK political system. It makes the government of the day accountable to parliament for its policies, actions and decisions. The main features of collective responsibility include (1) ministers must defend government policies in parliament and in public to maintain a united front and stability (2) cabinet discussions are confidential to encourage an uninhibited debate among senior ministers on policy options prior to the government announcing its official position on any given issue (3) ministers, private parliamentary secretaries and whips are expected to resign if they cannot abide by the convention of collective responsibility, and (4) the entire government must resign if it loses a no confidence vote in the House of Commons. This convention should not be confused with individual ministerial responsibility which holds that a minister is responsible to parliament for the actions and decisions of their department. Collective responsibility also applies in a similar way to the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales but not in Northern Ireland, partly because the mandatory nationalist-unionist coalition executive there makes the presentation of a united front much more problematic.

Collective responsibility: the core components

Collective responsibility rests on two central principles. First, government ministers should be able to engage in frank debates before arriving at a collective decision on an issue and that such debates should remain behind ‘closed doors’. Second, after the cabinet has agreed a policy position, all ministers are expected to support that decision (in parliament, public and Commons votes) or else resign from the government. This position is set out in the Cabinet Manual (2011). In practice, the extent to which the prime minister will enforce collective responsibility when faced with open ministerial disagreements or leaks of information from within the government to the media usually depends on several factors, notably (1) the seriousness of, and circumstances surrounding, the breach of the convention (2) the strength of the prime minister’s position in relation to their cabinet colleagues (3) the size of the governing party’s majority in the Commons, and (4) the extent to which the governing party is united in parliament. Conservative PM Theresa May, for example, was either unable or unwilling to enforce collective responsibility between 2016 and 2018 when Boris Johnson, then Foreign Secretary, wrote press articles and gave newspaper interviews that did not align with government policy.

Setting aside collective responsibility

According to the Cabinet Manual, collective responsibility always applies except where it is ‘explicitly set aside’ by the prime minister. Indeed, in 1977, the then Labour PM James Callaghan famously stated that ‘the doctrine should apply, except in cases where I announce that it does not.’ The formal setting aside of collective responsibility, known as an agreement to differ, happens infrequently but some of the key UK examples are given in the table below.

To what extent is collective responsibility enforced

Although the Ministerial Code states that ministers who cannot abide by collective responsibility are expected to resign, the document also notes that this is ‘guidance’ because ultimately only the PM can decide these issues due to their ‘hire and fire’ power. Once a PM concludes that a minister has to leave the government, the individual concerned is usually asked to tender their resignation but if, as occasionally happens, they refuse to comply, the PM can sack them from the administration. In 2019, for instance, Theresa May sacked Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary, because she believed he was the source of a leak from a National Security Council meeting. Williamson denied this and, prior to his removal, had refused to resign. More generally, in the turbulent period following the 2016 EU referendum, May’s government struggled to uphold collective responsibility due to divisions within the executive which eroded the PM’s status and authority. In March 2019, for example, a government motion requesting an extension to Article 50 was opposed by eight cabinet ministers, including Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the House. None of these ministers was sacked for this obvious breach of collective responsibility.