Ministerial responsibility

The constitutional principle that ministers, rather than the monarch, bear political accountability for government decisions and administration. It includes both ministers’ collective accountability to parliament and their individual responsibility for their departments.

Collective ministerial responsibility: The convention that ministers publicly support cabinet decisions or resign from government. It makes the cabinet answer to parliament as a united government.
Constitutional monarchy: A monarchy in which constitutional rules limit the monarch’s governing powers. Ministerial accountability helps make executive government compatible with a politically constrained monarch.
Ministerial code: A set of rules and standards governing the conduct of government ministers. It states conduct expectations but does not itself define the full constitutional convention.
Cabinet collective: The senior ministers who jointly direct a government’s policy and administration. Collective responsibility binds this group to shared public support for cabinet decisions.
Individual ministerial responsibility: The convention that a minister answers to parliament for a department and its conduct. It connects departmental administration to a named minister’s political accountability.
Glorious Revolution: The 1688–1689 overthrow of James II and establishment of William III and Mary II as joint monarchs. Its settlement strengthened Parliament’s position in the constitutional order from which ministerial government developed.
Legal responsibility: Accountability imposed through law, courts, or legally enforceable duties. A minister may be politically responsible without being legally liable for an administrative failure.
Government accountability: The obligation of public authorities to explain and answer for their decisions and conduct. Ministerial responsibility is one way a parliamentary government makes executive power answerable.
Parliamentary questions: Formal questions legislators put to ministers about government policy and administration. They provide a routine forum for ministers to explain decisions and departmental conduct.
Act of Settlement 1701: An English statute that regulated royal succession and restricted the monarch’s ability to alter the established constitutional settlement. Its provisions helped reinforce the principle that royal acts required ministerial advice.

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