How is the ministerial code enforced?
All of the codes give the final authority for decisions about action to be taken to the prime or first minister, or, in Northern Ireland, the relevant ‘nominating officer’ for a particular ministers’ party. As the decision about who may be appointed or dismissed as a minister is considered a fundamental power under the discretion of first ministers or the prime minister, there is strong resistance to changing how ministerial codes are enforced.
There is now often an expectation that breaching the code will lead to dismissal, though it is not a foregone conclusion. The code only says that ministers “will be expected to offer their resignation to the prime minister” if they “knowingly mislead parliament” – it does not set out any other sanctions for any other breaches of the code.
The most recent minister in the UK government to resign over a breach of the code was Damian Green in December 2017. The prime minister referred Green for investigation by the then cabinet secretary Jeremy Heywood, and when the ensuing investigation found that he had twice breached the honesty requirement of the Seven Principles of Public Life outlined in the code she asked him to resign as first secretary of state.
However, in November 2020, the prime minister’s independent adviser Alex Allan found that the home secretary, Priti Patel, had broken the ministerial code by bullying officials but the prime minister disagreed and chose to keep Patel in place. Allan resigned apparently in protest at this decision.