The payroll vote is a term in the British parliamentary system for

Members of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

who concurrently hold Government positions. It includes ministers and Parliamentary Private Secretaries. Even though the last are unpaid, they are widely regarded as being on the "first rung of the ministerial ladder". There is a commonly-observed convention in the

British constitution The constitution of the United Kingdom or British constitution comprises the written and unwritten arrangements that establish the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a political body. Unlike in most countries, no attempt ...

that all government ministers, including the

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

, be members of either the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

or the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...

, although this is not always strictly observed. Under the principle of

Cabinet collective responsibility Cabinet collective responsibility, also known as collective ministerial responsibility, is a constitutional convention in parliamentary systems that members of the cabinet must publicly support all governmental decisions made in Cabinet, even if ...

, all ministers must publicly support the position of the Government. Any minister who wishes to vote against the Government in Parliament is obliged to resign from governmental office first. There is therefore a built-in bloc of guaranteed support for the Government on any given parliamentary vote. However, in the votes in the

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC ...

during the week of 11 March 2019, cabinet MPs voted against the government (and their own) stance without facing any public questioning from

Theresa May Theresa Mary May, Lady May (; née Brasier; born 1 October 1956) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served in David Cameron's cabi ...

. The size of this bloc is substantial and has been increasing over time. Immediately after the 2005 general election, there were 89 ministers and 51 parliamentary private secretaries in the Commons, accounting for 40% of Labour Members of Parliament.

References

Parliament of the United Kingdom {{UK-gov-stub