What is Individual Ministerial Responsibility?

‘The convention that a minister should resign if their department makes a serious political or personal error. In practice, this usually means that a minister is responsible to Parliament and must face criticism and questioning.

Read our handout on Individual Ministerial Responsibility and high profile historic examples

This concept essentially means that Ministers are individually responsible for the work of their departments and are answerable to Parliament for all their departments activities. Therefore, they are expected to accept responsibility for any failure in administration, any injustice to an individual or any aspect of policy which may be criticised in parliament, whether personally or not.

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Why do members of the cabinet resign?

Cabinet members may choose to resign for a variety of reasons;

• Some may find that the pressures of high office are too much for them
• Others may find themselves isolated from the government, out of step with policies thus unable to continue to support the ‘party line’
• Some members are not deemed to be doing well enough by the PM and are thus removed during a ‘cabinet re-shuffle’.
• Some members are forced to resign after a particular personal or professional scandal
• Some members accept responsibility and resign due to mistakes made within their department

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EXAMPLES FROM 2017

• Michael Fallon, Defence Secretary, has to resign in November 2017 after allegations of sexual misconduct
• Priti Patel, International Development Secretary, had to resign in November 2017 after she had held unsanctioned meetings with Israeli politicians whilst on holiday
• Damian Green, First Secretary of State, resigned in December 2017 after an inquiry found he had violated the Ministerial Code

EXAMPLES FROM 2018

• Amber Rudd, Home Secretary, resigned in April 2018 after a scandal about immigrant removal targets
• David Davis, Brexit Secretary, resigned in July 2018 due to his disagreements over the Prime Minister’s negotiations for Brexit
• Boris Johnson, Foreign Secretary, resigned in July 2018, also due to disagreements over the Primer Minister’s negotiations for Brexit

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