How Does The Core Executive Fit into the Political System?
How is the Government put together
Ministerial Responsibility to Parliament
Ministers and Special Advisers
The Quad was a Coalition Committee with equal numbers of Conservative and Liberal Democrat Ministers. It was set up as a Cabinet Committee to deal with disputes between the two parties over Government policy.
Oliver Letwin, who played a major part in negotiating the Coalition deal, said that he expected it to be meeting almost continuously. In fact it hardly met at all, and only to deal with one or two really contentious issues such as NHS reform and the changes to parliamentary boundaries.
Instead meetings between Cameron and Osborne, for the Conservatives, and Clegg and Alexander, for the Lib Dems, met regularly to deal with any issues arisen and seemed to sort them out harmoniously with good personal relationships between them.
Other ministers were brought in as necessary such as then Chancellor George Osborne and Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary. Treasury influence was particularly strong. (James Forsyth’s article in the Spectator 18th February, 2012 gives a good picture of how the Quad worked)
