Collective Ministerial Responsibility

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. The debate is surprisingly topical. Only two hours ago in the Chamber, in response to an urgent question from the Opposition, the Minister responsible for press regulation, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, answered on behalf of not the Government, but the Conservative party, which I thought was rather bizarre. There followed a contribution from the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech)—who is not a member of the Government or part of ministerial collective responsibility—who purported to make a statement on behalf of the Liberal Democrat party. Surely the whole purpose of collective ministerial responsibility is to ensure that there is certainty outside about the Government’s view on a particular issue, so that they do not speak with forked tongue.

Although I welcome the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who will respond to the debate, I am rather disappointed that the Prime Minister is not here in person, because it was primarily his failure to answer my written questions on how he exercises collective ministerial responsibility that caused me to request the debate.

I started asking questions about the subject in December. I asked the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr Maude)—to whom my question to the Prime Minister was transferred—about the number of occasions on which collective ministerial responsibility had been set aside in this Parliament. I received a non-answer. I then went to ask some questions directly of the Prime Minister, but again my questions were not answered. Some of those non-answers are referred to in the briefing that is available to hon. Members. I will not go through those answers, because they are not answers. I could not understand why the Prime Minister was so reluctant to be accountable to Members of Parliament and put a straight answer to a straight question on how many occasions collective ministerial responsibility had been set aside.

After the set of answers—or non-answers—from the Prime Minister, I asked specific questions about what had happened in relation to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill last month. During consideration of Lords amendments, the Leader of the House of Commons announced that collective ministerial responsibility had been set aside—the first time that we have heard officially that that has happened—and, in answer to my intervention, explained that that was the Prime Minister’s decision. Following that, I asked the Prime Minister on what day he had set aside ministerial responsibility in relation to the Bill and the reasons for that. I have had no answers to those questions; in fact, I have had a deliberate refusal to answer. I cannot understand why, because I thought that the Government were interested in transparency and openness and that they would want to put their answers on the record.

My last stab at trying to get some answers from the Prime Minister was in the form of questions, which were answered on Monday this week. I asked,

“what the arrangements are for informing Ministers of the setting aside of collective ministerial responsibility in respect of votes in the House”

and

“on how many occasions a formal Cabinet decision has been made to set aside collective ministerial responsibility in the last 12 months.”

The answer I received was:

“It has been the practice of successive Governments not to disclose information relating to internal discussions”—

I did not ask about internal discussions, of course—

“information or forums in which decisions are made.”—[Official Report, 11 February 2013; Vol. 558, c. 462W.]

Apparently that is the Government’s policy.

However, that does not fit in well with a report in The Daily Telegraph on 15 January, by Tim Ross, about the “revolt”—as he put it—in the upper Chamber by six of the seven Liberal Democrat Front Benchers, who voted against the coalition Government on the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. He wrote:

“Downing Street said Prime Minister David Cameron would seek to overturn the amendment in the Commons, but without an overall…majority the parliamentary arithmetic is against him. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg had formally agreed to suspend the convention of ‘collective responsibility’ which applies to all Cabinet ministers on Government decisions. No. 10 said the decision to suspend ministerial responsibility, agreed before the Lords vote yesterday, was ‘the first time it has happened under this Coalition’.”

In a sense, a No. 10 spokesman was giving answers to my parliamentary questions, which the Prime Minister himself had refused to answer before the House. I find that extraordinary.

The situation was compounded. The article continued:

“Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, witnessed and recorded the agreement between the Tory and Lib Dem leaders yesterday and ruled that the approach was permissible under current rules governing the ministerial code.”

Where does that fit in with the non-answer that I received from the Prime Minister, saying that it is not the practice to disclose information relating to internal discussions, information or forums in which decisions are made?

The article continued:

“‘Having consulted the Cabinet Secretary they (Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg) have recorded their agreement to set aside collective responsibility on this occasion,’ the spokesman said.”

My concerns are, first, to see whether we can get the issue of collective ministerial responsibility out in the open, and secondly, to chide the Government and the Prime Minister—I have to name him, as head of the Government —for not following the policy that he has said he would follow, which is to promote transparency in government.

In a speech the Prime Minister made on 26 May 2009, titled “Fixing broken politics”, he said, under the sub-heading of “Transparency”, that

“there’s one more item on the agenda: transparency. Ask most people where politics happens and they’d paint a picture of tight-knit tribes making important decisions in wood-panelled rooms, speaking a strange language. If we want people to have faith and get involved, we need to defeat this impression by opening politics up—making everything transparent, accessible and human. And the starting point for reform should be a near-total transparency of the political and governing elite, so people can see what is being done in their name.”

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for spelling out his argument. Before the upper House broke ranks, as it were, when some Liberals voted with the Labour party and most Conservatives voted with the Government, was it clear that that would happen? Those of us who just read the newspapers were told that it was a surprise; we were not told that it was planned in advance by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, because the revolt was on primary legislation, whereas the only issue on which the Deputy Prime Minister had given notice that he would lead his troops in the opposite direction to the rest of the coalition was when, in August, he said he would withdraw his support for any Boundary Commission proposals put through the House via a statutory instrument. The revolt must have come as a bit of a surprise, but back in August he was giving public notice that he himself would set aside collective Cabinet responsibility, with or without the Prime Minister’s consent. In light of the information I have set out, it seems as though there was no consent at that stage to set aside collective ministerial responsibility.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend express a view in his narrative on whether the principle of collective ministerial responsibility is being applied rather capriciously? I have in mind those Parliamentary Private Secretaries who had to resign their admittedly very junior Government positions because they were in favour of an in/out referendum on Europe, which is now such a mainstream policy that the Opposition are being taunted about whether they, too, subscribe to it. Does he know whether those people have been offered their jobs back and on what definition of collective responsibility they were deprived of them in the first place?

[Mr Chope]

That is a telling point. All I know is that, for one Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Private Secretary who voted against the Government on tuition fees and consequently was forced to resign her position, it was only a few weeks before she was reinstated, and she has subsequently reached ministerial level. That is the rule that seems to apply to minority members of the coalition. As far as those on the Conservative side of the coalition are concerned, I have no information that suggests any Parliamentary Private Secretary who has been forced to resign has subsequently been reinstated, even if their reinstatement would coincide with a change of Government policy.

On the face of it, double standards seem to be operating, which is why transparency on the rules that apply to Parliamentary Private Secretaries is important. I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will be rather more forthcoming than the Prime Minister has been so far, because collective ministerial responsibility is a developing subject. We have already heard the Prime Minister, having initially said that he has not made up his mind, publicly say that, in the event of an in/out referendum in the next Parliament, which we all welcome, it would not be possible for members of his Government to vote for us to leave the European Union if he, the Prime Minister, were of the opinion that we should stay in the European Union. Collective ministerial responsibility apparently will not, therefore, be set aside on that very important issue, on which divisions within the Conservative party, and indeed across parties, go very deep.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

If the Prime Minister were not to achieve the great repatriation of powers that he expects, and if he were to choose instead to lead the campaign to leave the European Union, would the same provisions for collective responsibility apply?

[Mr Chope]

I do not know, but it is a good question. Unfortunately, the only way to receive an on-the-record response to that question from the Prime Minister is by tabling a parliamentary question. So far, there are no responses to such questions on the record, but perhaps the Minister will be able to enlighten my hon. Friend with an answer.

Obviously, a lot of people are saying, “If we are to have a renegotiation, we should wait to see the outcome before deciding whether we wish to leave.” That view is taken, for example, by the Mayor of London, and it seems odd to announce at this stage that in the future, irrespective of how much or how little is clawed back as a result of renegotiation, no one will be allowed to vote against the Government by voting to leave the European Union, without giving up their ministerial position. Of course that is different from when we last had a referendum on the European Union, when it was possible for members of the Government to campaign on either side of the argument.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

My hon. Friend referred to Parliamentary Private Secretaries resigning over European votes, even though what they resigned over is now effectively Government policy, but what about casualties of the vote on House of Lords reform? The interpretation of many Conservatives, including me, is that they were not voting against their Government because the coalition agreement simply stated that a committee would be established to bring forward proposals, yet they lost their jobs. Just a few months later, they see Liberal Democrat Ministers walking through the Lobby to vote against coalition policy although there was not a comma between the reform of parliamentary boundaries and the alternative vote referendum.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend makes a good point that demonstrates the inconsistency, and the feeling of unfairness, or even injustice, that it generates among parliamentary colleagues. That is why I hope for clarification on to what extent, if at all, the Government have altered the concept of collective ministerial responsibility. It seems to many, including from a number of comments made by Liberal Democrats, that notwithstanding what is said in the coalition agreement and the guidance for Ministers, there has been a change in the approach to collective ministerial responsibility.

One of the problems is that the Deputy Prime Minister cannot differentiate between collective ministerial responsibility and collective responsibility. He sees everything in terms of coalition, and thinks that Back-Bench Members of either the Conservative party or the Liberal Democrats have responsibility equal to that of members of the coalition Government, which is palpably wrong.

At oral questions yesterday, I asked the Deputy Prime Minister whether he would

“make it a priority to introduce transparency into collective ministerial responsibility, which seems to be being set aside without any proper accountability to the public or the House”.

He replied:

“As the hon. Gentleman and I have discussed before, collective responsibility prevails where there is a collective agreement and a collective decision on which collective responsibility is based. It is not easy, and certainly not possible to enforce collective responsibility in the absence of a collective decision taken first.”—[Official Report, 12 February 2013; Vol. 558, c. 697.]

I think A-level English language students will in due course be asked to interpret that. By muddling up collective ministerial responsibility and collective party political responsibility, the Deputy Prime Minister demonstrates a lack of understanding of the significance and importance of the concept of collective ministerial responsibility; its importance is that it gives certainty to people outside who want to know about Government policy.

The Liberal Democrats have a history of speaking with forked tongue. They often enunciate a different policy for different groups of potential electors, or electors in different parts of the country, because they think no one will check on the inconsistencies between policies. It seems as though their attitude towards speaking with forked tongue is tainting the whole Government.

I worry that a lack of intellectual rigour is being brought to the issue. That goes to the heart of the governance of our country. It is not just an academic topic to be discussed in essays; it bears on how the Government operate, the predictability with which they operate and, most importantly, the information available to people who rely on Government decisions. As I said at the outset, the situation today is that nobody knows the Government’s view on press regulation, because all that we had in response to the urgent question were statements in the House from party spokesmen. The issue will develop further in future, which is why we need proper accountability.

In a debate on 29 January, I asked my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to tell us who had set aside collective responsibility and, if it was the Prime Minister, why. He said:

“My hon. Friend will be aware that the Prime Minister has responsibility for the ministerial code. Indeed, when ministerial collective responsibility is explicitly set aside, it is the Prime Minister who makes that decision”—

the Prime Minister alone, not the Deputy Prime Minister. The Leader of the House continued:

“He is clearly doing it, as the House will understand, in the context of coalition government.” —[Official Report, 29 January 2013; Vol. 557, c. 807-8.]

When I asked the Prime Minister about that, all I got was a reference back to what the Leader of the House had said, even though according to the Leader of the House, the Prime Minister is solely responsible, and therefore accountable for the policy.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Cannot the entirety of what he is saying be summed up in one sentence? I speak with some experience from Northern Ireland. When political parties and philosophies in a coalition are diametrically opposed, inevitably we will end up with the problem that he is trying to rationalise.

[Mr Chope]

I submit that we should not necessarily end up with that problem. We know that one of the disadvantages of coalition government is that it leads to indecision, lowest common denominator decision-making and so on, but lowest common denominator decision-making does at least have a lowest common denominator. What we seem to have is a Government who take two parallel decisions at the same time and pick and mix.

That is evidenced further by the answer given yesterday to complaints about the change in the Government’s approach to inheritance tax. The answer, given by the Secretary of State for Health, was that there is an important difference between promises made by the Conservatives while in opposition and pledges made after the coalition agreement:

“That commitment on inheritance tax was a Conservative manifesto commitment. It’s not in the coalition agreement, so there is an important difference”.

It is not in the coalition agreement, but it is not specifically ruled out of the agreement either. Now the coalition and the agreement are being used as excuses for basically ripping up any policy that the Government do not like and replacing it with another. That is creating a lot of confusion among people outside, who are wondering where that leaves manifestos. We vote for parties on the basis of manifestos. If at the next general election a lot of people vote for the Conservative party on the basis that they will get an in/out referendum, and we then find that we do not have an overall majority and enter into some sort of coalition agreement, the manifesto pledge on which we got so many millions of votes will be torn up.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I am afraid that I am surprised that my hon. Friend has taken so long to realise that the creation of the coalition automatically meant the ripping up of the manifestos, except in so far as the manifesto policies were identical to those in the coalition agreement. Wherever they were not, all bets were off. That is what is so undemocratic about coalition politics.

I have a question to put to my hon. Friend. Let us say that our starting point is what was in the coalition agreement, forgetting about the manifestos. What does he think should happen under collective ministerial responsibility if one of the parties to the coalition agreement decides that, after all, it is not going to abide by a particular policy to which it signed up? What sanction would the Prime Minister have, for example, if the Deputy Prime Minister decided to renege? Would he basically sack the entire Liberal Democrat party from the coalition? Can we live in hope of that?

[Mr Chope]

I know that my hon. Friend and I come from a similar position on this issue; neither of us was an enthusiast of the coalition in the first place. I certainly went on record as saying that we would have been much better off having a minority Government untainted by the Liberal Democrats.

To answer my hon. Friend, that is a question for the Prime Minister. He is solely responsible for collective ministerial responsibility. If he had chosen not to set aside collective ministerial responsibility in relation to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, it probably would have been the end of the coalition. He would have ordered the Deputy Prime Minister to resign on the basis that he had breached collective ministerial responsibility, along with all the other Liberal Democrat Ministers who had done so. Then he could either have carried on with a minority Conservative Government and given people such as my hon. Friend the opportunity to join the Government as a Minister. Or, if there had been a subsequent vote of no confidence, we would have had a general election.

However, we cannot carry on like this, gradually eroding the principle of collective ministerial responsibility without anybody being held properly to account. Either the coalition Government stick together on the basis of collective ministerial responsibility or they break asunder, leading to an early general election, which I would certainly favour; that is my personal view. Otherwise, we face two years ahead during which there will be an increasing amount of muddle on these issues. We have only seen the beginning of it so far.

I am delighted that other hon. Members have come along to participate in this debate, as it is important. Although I would have been happy to have a half-hour Adjournment debate, it demonstrates that a much wider audience is interested in the issue, including colleagues from all parties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Nick Harvey]

It is certainly not for me to speak for the Prime Minister or the Government, because I am no longer a member of the Government. However, my hon. Friend is right: the question is about the nature of the agreement made. At the outset of a five-year term, an attempt is made to agree a coalition agreement that is to run for the five years. Such an agreement was novel territory in UK politics. We had not seen one for a long time. There were pressing economic circumstances in May 2010, as there still are today, and the judgment was made by both sides in the negotiation that speed was of the essence. However, if historians draw any lessons from this experience, they will surely come to the view that we may have something to learn from the experiences typical in continental Europe, where coalitions are negotiated over weeks, or even months.

Agreements reached in a matter of a few short days, however comprehensive they seek to be, cannot by definition possibly take account of every twist or turn that current affairs or political life will take in the five years that follow. There are, of course, “Events, dear boy, events.” Governments will have to take a position on issues that they had not anticipated at the start of a five-year term; that is inevitable. Collective responsibility, in the sense in which we have understood it, can exist only where there is a collective view, a collective agreement and a collective decision between the two parts of the coalition that they will proceed in a certain way. Where something breaks down or has not been anticipated, or something new arises on which the two parties are unable to reach agreement, it is inevitable that we will not be able to apply a traditional doctrine of collective ministerial responsibility. We should not fret about that or worry ourselves unduly about it.

Transparency has been mentioned. On the point that the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) made with reference to Northern Ireland, when there are two parties in a coalition, the world can see, recognise and understand that there are differences of view because there are different underlying philosophies. That is healthy and transparent. In Labour’s years in office, there was the running soap opera of the view in No. 10 and the view in No. 11 Downing street. I should have thought that the differences of view between the wings of that Government were every bit as large as those within the coalition, but there was no transparency there—nobody could really see or understand the debates. We relied on the columns of Mr Andrew Rawnsley and others, who provided us with a running commentary on what they thought was going on. It is far more transparent when two parties with acknowledged differences are conducting a debate. There will always be occasions when the two parties are not able to reach an agreement. Therefore, inevitably, the doctrine of ministerial responsibility cannot be applied.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend has enunciated a perfectly reasonable proposition, but unfortunately it does not fit in with the express provisions of the ministerial code, which was revised immediately after the general election to take account of the coalition. Why is he enunciating a proposition that is not reflected in the exact words of the ministerial code?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I am not saying that the ministerial code is perfect in every detail—I do not think for one moment that it is—but I am not entirely sure that it is as deficient or inapplicable in the circumstances that I have been describing as the hon. Gentleman suggests. He said that the responsibility is very much at the top, with the Prime Minister carrying the responsibility for the way that the collective ministerial responsibility provision operates. That is quite correct.

During my short spell in government, I was surprised at the extent to which more or less all Government business seemed to be escalated to No. 10 and the Cabinet Office, and seemed to be resolved on the desks of the Prime Minister and, in most cases, the Deputy Prime Minister. If we recall the provisions of the coalition agreement at the outset, they were that documents passing the Prime Minister’s desk were also to pass the desk of the Deputy Prime Minister.

The hon. Gentleman’s assertion that responsibility for setting aside the ministerial code, where it is set aside, lies with the Prime Minister is basically correct. Given the way the Government conduct their business, things seem to end up either in a one-to-one negotiation between the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister or in the quad—the quadrilateral meeting that brings into play the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It is at the absolute top that the conclusion has to be drawn that agreement cannot be reached on a particular matter.

Effectively, responsibility for setting aside the collective responsibility provision lies with the Prime Minister. He faces a choice. He must decide, in discussion with the Deputy Prime Minister, whether there is a collective view on the subject matter at hand. If there is not, he must conclude whether that is so serious and fatal to the ongoing continuity of the coalition that—this is precisely the choice that the hon. Members for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), and for Christchurch, hypothesised about—the coalition must be ended, or whether it is just a tiresome irritant that will have to be taken on the chin, with the overriding work of the coalition continuing, regardless. It is always open to the Prime Minister to arrive at that judgment.

I completely understand that some Conservative Back Benchers are not great enthusiasts for the coalition, but I should not have thought that a day when the opinion polls showed Labour at 41% and the Conservatives at 29% was quite the optimal moment to aspire to an early general election.

I urge the hon. Members for Christchurch, and for New Forest East, to have a jolly good look at the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, because it simply is not the case that ending the coalition, and the Government ceasing to be able to hold their own in a vote of confidence, results in a general election; it would have done previously, but, now that the Act has been passed, bringing about a general election is a very different proposition altogether. The removal of the Government requires a simple majority, but the early dissolution of Parliament requires a two-thirds majority in the House of Commons. Numerically, that can be achieved only if, on the same day, the Conservative and Labour parties feel they have an interest in an early general election.

As a mental exercise, I often try to think of the circumstances in which the Conservatives and the Labour party could both, at exactly the same moment, think it was in their interests to have an early election. Even in the entirely improbable situation that the Liberal Democrat vote had seemingly evaporated to nothing, I cannot see why the Conservatives and the Labour party would both think, at the same time, that it was in their interests to have an early election, so I have concluded that an early election is very improbable indeed.

The alternative to a Conservative minority Government is simply a Labour minority Government, which might appeal to the hon. Member for Christchurch as being quite helpful in the long term. However, an early election is simply not on offer with the ease that hon. Members believe it is.

We have a coalition, which brings together two parties. Where they can agree, we have collective responsibility; where they cannot, we have a free vote—that is, in effect, what happens when collective responsibility is set aside. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat Whips might then attempt a whipping operation to get the two parts of the coalition to vote in line with a party view, but, in Government terms, there is simply a free vote, which is what has happened on the occasions that have been cited.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss Smith]

I would be only too delighted to engage in that discussion with my hon. Friend, but as he knows, I no longer practise the dark arts carried out by what are known as the usual channels. I regret that I would not be able to do that decision justice; nor could I report back to those who make those decisions, if I even tried.

On the ministerial code, it is important to note that there is clear precedent, as has been said several times today, for suspending collective ministerial responsibility on specific issues, when the Government of the day decide that it is appropriate. A notable example, which we have discussed, is Harold Wilson’s decision on whether the UK should continue to be a member of the European Economic Community. He allowed members of his Cabinet to speak and campaign on both sides.

Let me offer the Chamber a few other historical examples. Shortly after the formation of the national Government in 1931, an “agreement to differ” was agreed. The terms of that were published in The Times in January 1932, and in February that year, the Home Secretary began a speech by commenting on the doctrine of collective responsibility:

“The House will have an opportunity…of discussing fully the departure from the doctrine of collective responsibility which is marked by my appearance at this Box this afternoon”—[Official Report, 4 February 1932; Vol. 261, c. 316.]

It is also helpful to note that in 1977, James Callaghan, the then Prime Minister, said:

“I certainly think that the doctrine should apply, except in cases where I announce that it does not.”—[Official Report, 16 June 1977; Vol. 933, c. 552.]

That demonstrates that the terms, duration and enforcement of the arrangement are ultimately a matter for the Prime Minister.

It is most important to add that the current Government have decided to set collective responsibility aside on some specific occasions. That is a fact of life in a coalition, and it shows how our constitutional practice can evolve to suit new situations.

[Mr Chope]

The Minister is talking a lot about the history, but can she explain why the Prime Minister was unable to give me a straight answer to my question, asking why he set aside collective ministerial responsibility in respect of the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, and on what date that decision was taken? Why could the Prime Minister not let me have a straight answer on that?

[Miss Smith]

I wanted to go on to say, in addressing what I took to be my hon. Friend’s central point—accountability for the decision, when taken, to set aside collective ministerial responsibility—that the key is that Parliament certainly ought to be informed in a way that is appropriate to the instance in hand. I will not comment on whether the Prime Minister did or did not do that for the hon. Gentleman in parliamentary questions, but in the instance of the Lords amendments to the ERA Bill, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House of Commons made such a statement to the House, explaining why he was speaking and how it was that collective responsibility had been set aside. I believe that the explanation has been offered in cases where such a departure has been outlined, and I think that that provides the kind of transparency and accountability that we are all seeking in this important area.

In conclusion, I note that the coalition agreement, in so far as it relates to the debate, sets out specific areas where the normal rule is not expected to apply. The citizens whom we all serve have had the chance to observe that in advance, and so hold us to account. Through that, there is no undermining of the coalition’s shared commitment to reducing the deficit and delivering a radical programme of reform that gets Britain back on track, after the catastrophic position in which it was left in 2010.

It has been possible in my short remarks to address only the notion of accountability for such decisions, but I want to finish by saying that it is vital that we are not distracted from our core task in Government at this time, which is to put right the mess that the Labour party made of Britain.