Text 1 parliamentary government

(A) An important group of conventions concerns the relationship between the executive and Parliament and gives the British constitution its character as a Parliamentary democracy. The Prime Minister is the leader of the majority party in the Commons and appoints other ministers. Senior ministers under the Chair of the Prime Minister form the Cabinet which is responsible for overall government policy. According to traditional doctrine the location of power lies in the balance between Prime Minister, Cabinet and Commons. The Crown by convention must usually dissolve Parliament if requested to do so by the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister must request her to dissolve Parliament if defeated on a vote of confidence in the Commons. A government holds office until it loses the support of the Commons. Except where the government is defeated on a vote of confidence the Prime Minister can decide when to dissolve Parliament and so cause a general election. This, along with the Prime Minister's power to appoint and dismiss ministers is the most important source of prime ministerial power. The Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland Chief Ministers do not have such strong powers over their governments.

(B) All ministers must be members of Parliament and most must be members of the House of Commons. Ministers are collectively responsible for government policy and individually responsible to Parliament for the conduct of themselves and their departments. However in recent years the ministerial responsibility has been criticised as blurring rather than focusing responsibility. Collective responsibility allows ministers to shelter within the group and refuse to divulge information while individual responsibility shields the civil servant who actually took the decision. On the one hand, government functions are arguably too large, diverse and dispersed for it to be fair to hold ministers responsible in respect of matters not directly under their control. On the other hand, without the chain of responsibility from officials through ministers to Parliament the democratic system is seriously flawed.

(C) Bagehot claimed that the Cabinet was the essential link in the constitution between Parliament and the executive which gave the system its motive power. It is often argued however that the Cabinet is losing political power because a group of this kind cannot deal with the size and complexity of modern government. According to this view, power is dispersed through a network of departmental officials, ministers and politically influential outsiders from business, the media, and the professions.

(D) It is worth noting that the Cabinet system developed originally as a defence against the monarchy, to stop the eighteenth-century Hanoverian kings from dominating the executive with their own supporters. According to Bagehot, the fact that the leaders of the executive are part of Parliament, and chosen by Parliament, enables the executive to get its way in normal circumstances but also enables Parliament to get rid of a failing government quickly. However, as Bagehot later feared and Dicey realised, the modern practices of strong party discipline and paid professional politicians mean that Parliament is likely to be more subservient to the executive than was the case during Bagehot's time. The opposition has a constitutional duty to criticise the government but by definition the opposition is a minority and may be in disarray for several years after an election defeat.

(E) Parliamentary government can be contrasted with the “presidential” form of constitution such as that of the USA which is based on a strict application of the doctrine of the separation of powers. In the USA the president is directly elected by the people and the cabinet cannot be members of the legislature. Moreover the legislature cannot get rid of the executive except by the rarely used hybrid judicial and political process of impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanours”. The model of the USA has not been widely followed and democratic constitutions tend to the parliamentary model. Some constitutions, for example that of France, are hybrids of parliamentary and presidential systems. In France the president is directly elected; members of the executive need not be members of the legislature but the government can be dismissed by the legislature.

(F) Finally the system of parliamentary government depends upon the existence of a strong, permanent and impartial professional civil service with the functions of advising ministers, carrying out governmental instructions and ensuring continuity and expertise. The civil service has been variously described as the ballast and the collective memory of the constitution, roles which are arguably particularly important in an unwritten constitution. Unlike the case in the USA, an incoming government does not bring with it a change in the senior civil service personnel so that the impartiality of the civil service is an essential element of the system.

(G) The convention of ministerial responsibility has traditionally shielded civil servants from personal responsibility for actions carried out on behalf of government and enabled them to give independent advice to ministers. However there has recently been some relaxation of the convention of ministerial responsibility in that civil servants have sometimes been required by ministers to take public responsibility for their actions. Moreover the current practice of structuring the routine activities of government as semi-independent “executive agencies” for which individual civil servants are managerially responsible has weakened the doctrine of ministerial responsibility.

H) Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own governmental bodies which carry out functions other than those reserved to the central government. However, Parliament probably has the overriding power to legislate on any matter for any part of the UK. Local Authorities are elected bodies which to a limited extent can raise taxes. However, their powers are controlled by ministers and they have little policy-making freedom.

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