Evaluate the view that ministerial responsibility no longer effectively holds the executive to account in the UK.
Format. Each stem opens an analytical sentence. Finish it in one or two short sentences that commit to the line of argument. Type your completion in the box, then reveal the model answer.
Stem 1
The Patel 2020 case shows that IMR no longer effectively holds ministers to account because...
Model: ...the Cabinet Office found a breach of the Code, the independent adviser called for action, and the Prime Minister kept her in post anyway. The sanction depended on the PM choosing to apply it.
Stem 2
Re-appointing Suella Braverman six days after her October 2022 resignation matters because...
Model: ...it drained the resignation of meaning. A sanction reversed within a week is not a sanction. The episode showed the executive treats IMR as a PR tool rather than a constitutional discipline.
Stem 3
The Truss-Kwarteng mini-budget shows CMR being bypassed rather than enforced because...
Model: ...the decision was made outside Cabinet, never presented to the OBR, and not collectively endorsed. The doctrine of collective ownership of decisions was inverted.
Stem 4
Routine Cabinet leaks under recent governments are evidence of CMR breakdown because...
Model: ...the public-unity rule has been hollowed out by daily briefings against colleagues. No minister has been publicly dismissed for leaking. The doctrine's sanction has effectively disappeared.
Stem 5
The resignations of Sir Alex Allan in 2020 and Sir Christopher Geidt in 2022 matter because...
Model: ...two successive independent advisers on ministerial interests walked when their findings were ignored by the Prime Minister. The supposedly independent enforcement mechanism is controlled by the office it is meant to check.
Stem 6
A defender of ministerial responsibility might argue that the doctrine still bites because...
Model: ...the most serious breaches still produce resignation. Ministers still face real political consequence in cases like Williamson 2021, Kwarteng 2022, Braverman fired 2023 and Rayner 2025.
Stem 7
The strongest counter to that defence is that...
Model: ...in each named case the sanction depended on the PM's political calculation, not on the doctrine itself. Patel 2020 shows what happens when the PM does not want accountability.
Stem 8
The line of argument across the essay should be that...
Model: ...ministerial responsibility no longer holds the executive effectively to account. Both IMR and CMR have been bent so often that they describe practice less than they used to, and the supposedly independent enforcement mechanisms are in fact under the Prime Minister's control.