324 General Principles of Constitutional and Administrative Law

clarify the obligations entailed by it and, in particular, to ascertain the

matters about which ministers must answer questions. One funda-

mental dimension of this reform concerned the Resolutions of the

House of Commons and House of Lords on ministerial accountability

(1997). The Resolutions are in similar but not identical terms. The

Resolutions led to the adoption by the then newly elected Labour gov-

ernment of the Ministerial Code (2001). This incorporates the Resolu-

tion of each House (para. 1, sub paras (ii)–(v)). As amended, Section 1

of the Code reminds ministers that they can only continue to hold office

for as long as they have the support of the prime minister. The Code

then states that the prime minister (and not the respective Houses

of Parliament) ‘is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour

expected of a Minister and the appropriate consequences of a breach of

those standards’. This suggests that the Code envisages that the prime

minister is both a setter of standards and responsible for their enforce-

ment. For that reason the statement reads rather oddly in the context

of the Resolutions. The Code then expresses the following principles of

ministerial conduct (which are mostly in the terms of the Resolutions).

1. Ministers of the Crown are expected to behave according to the high-

est standards of constitutional and personal conduct. In particular

they must observe the following principles of ministerial conduct:

(i) Ministers must uphold the principle of collective responsibility;

(ii) Ministers have a duty to Parliament to account, and be held to

account, for the policies, decisions and actions of their Depart-

ments and Next Steps Agencies;

(iii) It is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and

truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent

error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly

mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to

the Prime Minister; (emphasis supplied)

(iv) Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament and the

public, refusing to provide information only when disclosure

would not be in the public interest, which should be decided in

accordance with relevant statute, and the Government’s Code

of Practice on Access to Government Information

(v) Similarly Ministers should require civil servants who give

evidence before Parliamentary Committees on their behalf and

under their directions to be as helpful as possible in providing

accurate, truthful and full information in accordance with the

duties and responsibilities of civil servants as set out in the Civil

Service Code.

325

Ministers and Departments

These Resolutions are of fundamental importance because minister-

ial responsibility is arguably no longer an unwritten convention which

can be varied at will by the government of the day but is now part of the

law of Parliament although not of course enforceable in the courts.

The terms of the Resolutions are not, however, without difficulty.

As Woodhouse observes (1997), satisfying the terms of the resolu-

tions may not be unduly burdensome. Ministerial judgement will still

govern what it means to be ‘as open as possible’ and when disclosure

‘would not be in the public interest’. This means that the problems of

interpretative ambiguity still remain, and that the doctrine of min-

isterial responsibility remains somewhat elusive. It can also be asked

whether a minister who deliberately misleads Parliament has sufficient

integrity to offer resignation to the prime minister? And what is the

effect of the statement that the prime minister is the ultimate judge of

the appropriate standards of behaviour? Does this merely re-state the

political reality that loss of office inevitably follows the loss of prime

ministerial support for a beleaguered minister or does it hint at a

diminished role for Parliament?

The Code of Practice on Access to Government Information (1994)

was revised in 1997 to create a clear statement of the presumption in

favour of disclosure of information. The need for this had been effect-

ively heralded by Scott who stated that the accountability/responsi-

bility divide was only constitutionally acceptable provided that there

was a ‘consequent enhancement of the need for ministers to provide . . .

full and accurate information to Parliament’ which is vital to effective

accountability (K8.16). There were also revisions to limit the scope of

the exemptions under which information could be withheld. Moreover,

a new official document, Guidance to Officials on Drafting Answers to

Parliamentary Questions (1996–7) emphasises that if information is

to be withheld, and a parliamentary question cannot be fully answered,

the answer must itself make this clear and explain the reasons in equiv-

alent terms to those in the Code of Practice.

The Code which, at the time of writing continues to apply, includes

exemptions in Part II which permit information to be withheld

(e.g. defence, security and international relations, immigration and

nationality, information of economic sensitivity, and internal discus-

sion and advice such as cabinet papers). Under a further reform, and

contrary to previous practice, the Table Office now only prevents the

tabling of parliamentary questions if the minister has refused to

answer it in the same session. The block is only applied to the terms of

the question and not the broader subject matter of it (Erskine May,

1997, pp. 298–301). There is a range of issues about which ministers

326 General Principles of Constitutional and Administrative Law

do not answer questions (ibid., pp. 291–306). A list of questions which

ministers declined to answer in the 1995–6 session was presented to

the Public Service Committee (see First Report, 1996–97, Ministerial

Accountability and Responsibility, HC 234, pp. 18–34).

The responsibility/accountability distinction continues to be con-

troversial. The Public Service Committee rejected the bifurcation of

accountability and responsibility and doubted whether in practice the

distinction could be made ((2nd Report, 1995–6, HC 313, para. 21).

The Committee concluded that the essence of ministerial responsibility