Oral Answers to Questions — Transport. – in the House of Commons at on 6 March 1935.
Mr Benjamin Gardner
, West Ham Upton
asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that extensive advertising is taking place on road surfaces in the Metropolitan area, advertisers using whitewash and other similar materials to print information in large letters; that many of these advertisements are placed across the ends of streets giving on to main thoroughfares; that these advertisements may distract the attention of motor drivers while driving and of pedestrians while crossing the roads; and whether be will issue an instruction that all such advertisements must be in line with and near the kerb so that they may be easily read by passers-by from the footpath?
Mr Leslie Hore-Belisha
, Plymouth, Devonport
While I deprecate the practice of advertisements being painted or otherwise marked on road surfaces, I have no statutory power in the matter, but am informed that the responsible highway authorities have powers to make by-Laws to deal with this abuse of the highway.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
Laws are the rules by which a country is governed. Britain has a long history of law making and the laws of this country can be divided into three types:- 1) Statute Laws are the laws that have been made by Parliament. 2) Case Law is law that has been established from cases tried in the courts - the laws arise from test cases. The result of the test case creates a precedent on which future cases are judged. 3) Common Law is a part of English Law, which has not come from Parliament. It consists of rules of law which have developed from customs or judgements made in courts over hundreds of years. For example until 1861 Parliament had never passed a law saying that murder was an offence. From the earliest times courts had judged that murder was a crime so there was no need to make a law.
