Oral Answers to Questions — Unemployment. – in the House of Commons at on 1 February 1940.
Mr William Mainwaring
, Rhondda East
asked the Minister of Labour whether all activities under the Commissioners for Special Areas are now suspended; and whether it is intended to resume at any time before the end of the present war the task of preparing sites for new industries and thus anticipate some aspects of the inevitable economic dislocation that will follow?
Mr Ernest Brown
, Leith
In reply to the former part of the Question I have nothing to add to the answer I gave the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) on 26th October and to the statement I made on 12th December in the course of Debate on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. With regard to the latter part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the answers given by the Prime Minister on 5th December to my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton (Mr. Craven-Ellis) and on 28th January to the hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths).
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.
