Cabinet should be standing together on Heathrow

It must dismay the Government that even many of its supporters think the new runway at Heathrow will never be built – including those who will happily vote for it. The economic case for one, somewhere, is unanswerable, and wherever it is built someone will be aggrieved. We should be uneasy about the abandonment of collective responsibility for the Cabinet on any important issue.

Boris Johnson and Justine Greening, whose constituencies will be affected, have been allowed to criticise the policy. This is one of the toxic legacies of the coalition, when one or two Liberal Democrat ministers – notably the preposterous Vince Cable – were allowed to say what they liked about policy to try to hang on to their seats (a tactic that failed for Sir Vince).

Collective responsibility exists because it makes for coherent, comprehensible and effective government. Without it, running the country becomes a shambles and whatever confidence people have in their rulers ebbs away. No one is forced to serve in a Cabinet: if they choose to do so, they should accept the rules. The Heathrow dispensation suggests individual ministers are bigger than the collective. They aren’t, and it shouldn’t happen again.