Should Dr Fox resign?

Dr Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, has come under increased pressure this weekend regarding the behaviour of his close friend Adam Werritty.

This is an opportunity to revisit the politics of ministerial resignations, a very common Unit 2 topic. I include a study note on ministerial responsibility with this story .

At the stage it is not clear that Dr Fox has done anything wrong but closer investigation may reveal that he has broken the ministerial code. This is a document given to all ministers when they are appointed to government, covering the rules that come with being a minister. The code states that no conflict of interest should arise or appear to arise from holding their government post. If this is the case then Fox will be expected to resign.

The BBC covers the Fox saga clearly here.

Before Labour took office the code was called Questions of Procedure for Ministers, and the content of this document was secret until it was published under the Major government as part of their drive to open up government. You can read the code here.

What does ministerial responsibility entail?

Defining collective ministerial responsibility

• Collective ministerial responsibility (CMR) is a convention that can be described as the glue which holds Cabinet government together. It is convention that all ministers publicly support decisions of Cabinet (even if they disagree in private) or its committees or resign. Over the last 40 years or so, around two dozen ministers have exited the government on the grounds of collective responsibility. Most famously, the dramatic resignation of Michael Heseltine over the Westland affair in 1986. Less famously, but more recently, Robin Cook and Clare Short left the government over the Iraq invasion.

• Under the penumbra of collective responsibility, convention dictates that the government should resign if defeated on a vote of confidence in the Commons, for instance James Callaghan called for a dissolution on 28 March 1979 following a defeat in the Commons shortly after the government’s devolution proposals were rejected by the Scots and Welsh.

Defining individual ministerial responsibility

• A feature of parliamentary government is that the executive is drawn from the legislature and according to the constitution is directly answerable to it. The ministerial ‘highway code’ is laid out in the ministerial code of conduct, which is issued to all ministers.

• It is very rare for a minister to resign as a result of an error of policy or administration, but we can point to the resignation of Estelle Morris over the A levels fiasco in 2002, and Bev Hughes over visas in 2004.

• A personal mistake is by far the most common reason for ministers to resign, but some ministers weather the media storm better than others. In the 1990s it seemed like the Tories had set up a ministerial resignation production line (Mellor, Mates, Yeo, Brown, Hughes, Aitken), but after New Labour took office it quickly became apparent that being whiter than white was a promise that would be difficult to fulfil. In 1998 the Welsh Secretary, Ron Davies, resigned after a ‘moment of madness’ on Clapham Common. Under the Con-Lib coalition, Treasury Minister David Laws was first to fall on his sword following revelations about claiming housing expenses while sharing a house with his male partner.