Political Mechanisms
Confidence and Supply
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An arrangement in which a minor party or independent legislators outside government agree to support a minority government on votes of confidence and on the budget bills that keep it funded, called supply, in exchange for influence over specific policies, without joining the government itself or accepting collective responsibility for its full programme. The minor party remains formally in opposition and is free to vote against the government on any matter the agreement does not cover. It is most associated with governments formed under proportional or mixed electoral systems that regularly produce no single-party majority, New Zealand's arrangements since its 1996 shift to mixed-member proportional representation and the United Kingdom's 2017 to 2019 agreement between the Conservative government and the Democratic Unionist Party among the most documented instances.
Facts
Disputed
Origin YearSources do not agree on a clean founding date for the term or the practice: minority governments have relied on informal outside support for as long as parliamentary systems have produced them, and the formalized confidence-and-supply agreement, with the term itself in common use, is most associated with New Zealand's regular minority governments after its 1996 shift to mixed-member proportional representation. Recorded here as a representative rather than a first date. Founding ContextA minor party agrees to support the government on votes of confidence or no confidence and on supply (budget) bills while remaining formally in opposition; a notable example is the 1977-1978 Lib-Lab pact between the UK Liberal Party and Labour government. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
A confidence-and-supply agreement's first commitment is a promise to support the government, or abstain, on any motion of no confidence brought against it.
The Conservative government's 2017 to 2019 agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party, after the Conservatives lost their majority in that year's general election, is the most widely reported recent instance of the arrangement.
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