Talk:Confidence and supply

This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Politics Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics articles Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

If I never get around to it, can somebody please set up a page called supply and confidence that redirects here? In the middle of editing, I don't always check redlinks, and a loophole would be right handy for this sort of thing. plan 8 (talk) 02:22, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done, you lazy bastard. --Helenalex (talk) 22:40, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Article currently states; "Sometimes, rather than reject a supply bill outright, a parliament will amend the bill to show its lack of confidence in the government. The government is then bound by convention to resign."

This is simply not true. Just because the House attaches a motion of Confidence to a bill does not NECESSARILY result in a resignation. For example, if a motion of Confidence is attached to a procedural issue, such as happened in Canada in May of 2005, the Government is not required to resign. The above statement would only be correct if such a rider were attached directly to a Bill that was seeking reading or assent. I will change this unless anyone has an objection? Dphilp75 (talk) 15:08, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just removed it. How can a government be bound by convention especially when post-1910 there's only been one other hung parliament, 70 years ago? Timeshift (talk) 08:12, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My answer would be in two parts. First of all, it would largely depend on which Westminster Government we were talking about. Hung Parliaments are reasonably common in Canada when compared to the UK. Secondly, a convention is a convention so long as it is honoured. Conventions by definition are not legally enforceable; They are just simply the way things are done. As such, Governments certainly can be EXPECTED to be bound by convention, but there is *NO* legal authority to act against a Government that breaks it.

I'm glad we saw eye to eye on this one! I was actually expecting a fight! :) Dphilp75 (talk) 16:43, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I believe support is wrong or potentially misleading here. In most cases a government doesn't need a majority of total MPs supporting them on confidence and supply issues, they just need more supporting then opposing. This means a government can survive if sufficient MPs (e.g. a party) agrees to abstain on confidence and supply issues so a confidence and supply agreement can theoretically include a party agreeing to abstain. [1] [2] [3]. (In NZ it has happened before but AFAIK it has never actually needed needed, in other words all governments actually had a majority of MPs agreeing to support them on confidence and supply issues although sometimes it's been so close that it has helped ensure there's less concern of one defector since we no longer have anti-party hopping legislation.) Nil Einne (talk) 02:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are making too much of this, but it's an easy enough fix. -Rrius (talk) 02:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

More than that, confidence and suply also applies to the "Consensus" systems in parliamentary systems and to semi-presidential systems as well, since the cabinet is always subject to parliamentary confidence. --B.Lameira (talk) 17:55, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yup! Like the first Rutte cabinet in the Netherlands, where there was a separate support agreement with the PVV party, side-by-side with the coalition agreement. And there will be many examples in other countries. Bever (talk) 01:56, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]