Ministerial responsibility has long been hailed as a cornerstone of the UK’s constitution. It is one of its central conventions, often described as the heart of parliamentary accountability. Although not codified in law or legally enforceable, it operates as a constitutional rule of conduct — the mechanism by which Parliament ensures that ministers answer for their own personal conduct, as well as for the actions of their government departments.

Essentially, if Parliament asks questions, the minister answers them. If confidence is lost, the minister falls. The neatness of this principle has always been more fiction than fact, but it has endured for so long on account of its simplicity: someone is always to blame.

That clarity is now dissolving. The rise of technocracy, or government by an elite of technical experts, has reshaped ministerial responsibility in an unrecognisable and dysfunctional way.

Ministers are increasingly held accountable for decisions beyond their control, a fragility starkly exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. In today’s debates over artificial intelligence, economic regulation and climate policy, this dilemma only grows more acute.

This article does not seek to attack a particular government or political party. Instead, examples from recent governments will be used to answer a difficult question: can ministers still reasonably be held accountable for decisions driven by expertise they themselves lack?

Traditionally, ministerial responsibility was divided into two familiar strands: individual responsibility for personal and departmental conduct, and collective responsibility for Cabinet decisions. Together, these principles operated in a neat way. Parliament could always call a minister to account for departmental failings, and a focus on Cabinet solidarity ensured that ministers worked to present a united government to the media and general public. This was always a ‘legal fiction’. No court could enforce it, yet it supplied the constitutional logic that made parliamentary scrutiny meaningful.

Despite not being legally enforceable, these conventions have, on occasion, reached the courts. In Attorney-General v Jonathan Cape Ltd, the High Court considered whether a former minister could be stopped from publishing memoirs based on confidential Cabinet meetings he attended during his time in government. The Court refused to intervene. However, Lord Chief Justice Widgery stressed that collective responsibility was essential to the functions of Cabinet government.

The case demonstrated the constitutional significance of the principle. For decades, the doctrine’s strength lay in this shared understanding. The system worked because it was simple, workable and acceptable to politicians, not because it could ever be compelled by law.

But this fiction has limits. It assumes ministers truly command their departments. A Home Secretary cannot disclaim responsibility for policing failures because of operational independence. The purpose of this principle is to keep ministers responsible, even when they are not directly at fault. The fiction was that ministers command. That fiction is now faltering.

That fragility is most apparent in the conditions of modern government. Ministers increasingly operate in an age where they are advised by experts in their departments. Thus, they can no longer command their departments in any meaningful sense.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted this shift significantly. Repeatedly, ministers assured the public that they were ‘following the science’. In reality, scientific advice on managing the pandemic was never singular: it was layered, grounded in detailed research, and often too technical for ministers to evaluate independently. The principle presumes that a minister is in control, yet what emerged were ministers translating specialist advice to the public.

The same problems prevail in other areas of government. Key sectors are now led by independent regulators. The Bank of England sets interest rates, while Ofcom regulates communications, including broadcasting and postal services. Questions surrounding AI, climate change and economic growth all demand specialist advice. This reliance has entrenched a technocratic turn, degrading the principle of responsibility into little more than a constitutional watermark of a bygone era.

Now, ministers are expected to be accountable for outcomes that they are unable to sufficiently direct or control.

This tension is highlighted in two recent controversies. Former Home Secretary Amber Rudd’s resignation in 2018 over the Windrush scandal exposed how a minister could fall for departmental failings rooted in complex administrative processes she did not directly control. By contrast, then Home Secretary Theresa May’s attempt in 2011 to shift blame for border control failures onto senior civil servant Brodie Clark showed responsibility could be evaded, despite her position of authority. One minister punished without power, another shielded despite power.

Both instances demonstrate the problem with the continued reliance on ministerial responsibility. Parliament continues to call ministers to account, scrutinising the appearance of responsibility, rather than the actual distribution of decision-making power. The neat fiction has not disappeared or been forgotten — but it has been stretched so far that its constitutional logic can no longer be taken for granted.

Ministerial responsibility cannot simply be abandoned. It remains one of the few conventions that ties government power directly to parliamentary scrutiny. But neither can it survive unchanged. Codifying the doctrine in law would risk rigidity and judicialisation of what should remain a political process.

Instead, its renewal lies in adaptation. Parliamentary select committees could be strengthened to scrutinise the expert bodies and regulators whose decisions ministers must front.

Greater transparency about where advice ends and decision begins would also allow Parliament, and the public, to distinguish between technical error and political failure.

The political system must not be afraid to acknowledge the shift to technocracy. Instead, it must encourage Parliament to scrutinise experts and hold them accountable for the expertise they offer the government. Responsibility should not mean liability without agency, nor immunity without power.

So, can ministers still reasonably and fairly be held accountable for decisions they cannot fully control? Only if responsibility is redefined. The principle must evolve from a fiction of command to a framework of transparency — one that acknowledges the real distribution of power in a technocratic age. Otherwise, ministerial responsibility risks hardening into a hollow ritual: a constitutional symbol stretched so thin that it becomes ritual without substance.

Jack Gower is a law student at the University of Cambridge. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of Bright Blue.