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Learning to share: the balance of ministers, 2010-2015

The coalition agreement stated that the two parties’ share of ministerial posts would be ‘approximately in proportion to the size of the two parliamentary parties’. Was this agreement honoured – and did it change? Emily Andrews examines the coalition government’s ministerial balancing act.

At the end of this Parliament, the Lib Dems in government were overrepresented by seat share, but underrepresented by vote share.

At the end of this parliament, 23% of full Cabinet ministers (5 out of 22) – and 18% of all ministers attending cabinet (6 out of 33) – were Liberal Democrats. Looking across the whole of government, including junior ministers, the proportions remain roughly the same: 20% of government positions are held by the Lib Dems. The initial coalition agreement stated that ministerial positions would be divided ‘approximately in proportion to the size of the two parliamentary parties’. As the chart above shows, the Liberal Democrats ended up slightly better off than that: at dissolution, they held only 15% of the Coalition’s seats in Parliament. This is still not sufficient for some. Former Lib Dem minister Nick Harvey recently argued that in any future negotiation, the Lib Dems should push for ‘roughly a quarter of the posts’ to be effective. He had assumed the Lib Dem starting point in 2010 would be linking ministerial posts with vote share: this would have given the Lib Dems more ministers, since they accounted for 39% of all votes cast for the two Coalition parties at the 2010 election. Seven departments began the parliament with no Lib Dem minister; four departments ended it without one.
At the start of the parliament, seven departments (CO, DCLG, Defra, DfID, NIO, Wales) had no Liberal Democrat ministers. By the end of the parliament, there were only four: FCO, MoD, DCMS and NIO. Only one department, the Northern Ireland Office, has never had one. Since 2010:

  • Three departments – BIS, DECC and the Scotland Office – have had Lib Dem secretaries of state (SoS). Three others – the Treasury through the Chief Secretary, and DfE and Cabinet Office through joint Minister of State David Laws – have provided Lib Dem members of the Cabinet.
  • Ten departments have had a Lib Dem Minister of State (MoS): HMT, HO, FCO, MoJ, MoD, DWP, DH, DfT, Defra, CO.
  • Nine have had Lib Dems serve as parliamentary Under secretaries of state(PUSS): HO, BIS, DCLG, DfE, DfID, DfT, Wales, DCMS, Defra.

Most Liberal Democrats ministers were alone in their department.

These charts show the balance of the two coalition parties in particular departments since 2010. Each box represents a minister, and the rows show the makeup of the department after each major reshuffle. They are arranged in ranks - SoS, MoS, PUSS – from left to right. Only two departments (BIS and DfE) have ever had more than two Liberal Democrat ministers in the department at once. At DfE, this only happened in July 2014, when new Secretary of State Nicky Morgan brought the equalities ministers – including Liberal Democrat Jo Swinson – with her into the department. Swinson holds no education-specific brief. Of the 21 Liberal Democrats who held junior ministerial posts, 16 never experienced being in a department with another minister from their own party. The Institute has previously noted that these ministers are often expected to play a ‘“watchdog” role across the full departmental brief’, which can compound the already heavy workloads of junior ministers. Former Minister Nick Harvey (the lonely yellow box at MoD) has written that it ‘took every ounce of my ingenuity…to keep up with what was happening across the department.’ Over 40% of MPs in both coalition parties have held a position in this government.
Both coalition parties have managed to give a government post to more than 40% of their Members of Parliament (including Whips and Law Officers, but not Parliamentary Private Secretaries). 27 out of 58 Liberal Democrats and 124 out of 305 Conservatives who voted in the House of Commons over the course of this parliament (including those who resigned or had the whip withdrawn before dissolution, or who were elected in a by-election after 2010) held a ministerial position at some point. 59% of Liberal Democrat ministers reached Secretary of State or Minister of State level.
A larger proportion of Lib Dem ministers made it to the higher ministerial ranks – secretary of state and minister of state - while a greater proportion of Conservatives remained at more junior ranks. This chart shows the highest rank achieved by every person who has held a government post since 2010, including those from the House of Lords (21% of Conservative ministers and 27% of Liberal Democrats). 59% of Liberal Democrats who held a ministerial post during this parliament rose to the level of minister of state or higher (22 out of 37), compared to 50% of Conservatives (79 out of 157). Of course, the balance of power was still firmly in the larger party’s favour. When Parliament was dissolved, the Conservatives still outnumbered Liberal Democrats at minister of state level 26 to 8. Whatever hue of government emerges after the election, the scales will inevitably tip in some way. If they go back into a coalition government, the Lib Dems might choose to concentrate their powers in key positions, rather than trying to spread across government. A multi-party coalition could be even more difficult to balance. In this age of minority, however, we cannot assume that a coalition awaits us after May 8th – the government may be formed by a single-party minority. If this happens, the parliamentary balancing act will become just as important as the governmental one.

Topic
Ministers

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