Speaker’s Rulings — Oral Questions—Ministerial Responsibility

Members may remember that I undertook to come back with a considered ruling in the area of ministerial responsibility. Questions to Ministers are one of the core accountability mechanisms possessed by the House. They enable it to hold the Government to account for its actions and policies. Standing Orders and precedents should be interpreted in favour of Ministers answering questions for matters for which they are responsible. Only Ministers can answer to the House for matters of public administration, and exemptions from answering should be rare.

An important element of ministerial accountability is collective responsibility. The House expresses its confidence in the collective whole of Government, rather than in individual Ministers. In all areas of their work, Ministers represent and implement government policy (paragraph 5.24, Cabinet Manual). However, since the introduction of MMP, the concept of collective responsibility has changed somewhat, with parties in Government having the ability to agree to disagree. Such arrangements need to be taken into account when considering ministerial responsibility.

As far as the House is concerned, a broad view is taken of the concept of ministerial responsibility. The starting point is Standing Order 378, which permits questions to Ministers relating to public affairs with which the Minister is officially connected, and proceedings in the House or any matter of administration for which the Minister is responsible.

The question of responsibility has received significant attention from presiding officers over many years because of its importance to the role of the House in holding the Government to account. Speaker Carter ruled that where the Speaker judges a question to reveal a reasonable likelihood of a connection to ministerial responsibility, an informative answer must be given (Speaker’s ruling 155/1).

Ministers may be answerable for things that are operational matters (Speakers’ ruling 160/3); are outside their legal control but within their portfolio responsibility, such as the statutory powers exercised by an official (Speaker’s ruling 160/1); occurred in the portfolio before he or she was Minister (Speaker’s ruling 155/5) because questions relate to portfolios, not individual people (Speaker’s ruling 156/1); are contained in coalition agreements where they have implications for Government business (Speaker’s ruling 156/4); and are a matter that impinges on ministerial responsibilities, particularly where a Minister has made statements or answered questions about it (Speakers’ rulings 156/5 and 157/1).

It has long been accepted the Ministers are not answerable for their actions as members of their parties (Speakers’ ruling 157/4). They do not have ministerial responsibility for their actions or statements as a member of Parliament. However, it is not always easy to distinguish the capacity in which a member is speaking.

As a rule of thumb, if a Minister speaks about a matter that might be interpreted as being Government policy, it will be taken as being a statement in a ministerial capacity, unless the circumstances in which the statement is made would make that interpretation impossible to sustain. In general, it is the subject matter of comments made by a Minister that determine whether he or she, or another Minister, has ministerial responsibility for them, rather than the place in which they were made or the audience to whom they were made.

Where statements are made by Ministers that might be interpreted as being Government policy, it is open to members of the House to test whether, in fact, they are Government policy and to question the Government about them.

I will have this ruling circulated.