Oral Answers to Questions — Ministry of Supply – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 3 March 1947.
Mr. Vane:
asked the Minister of Supply (1) what system of accounting is adopted by his Department to enable managers of housing estates to account for the income and annual expenditure, including repairs, in respect of each property or estate under their management;
(2) what proportion of the total rent and estimated rental value in the case of properties occupied rent free in respect of all his Department's housing estates in England and Wales was expended during the last accounting year on repairs, insurance, management and other outgoings in order to enable the existing rental value to be maintained.
Mr John Wilmot
, Deptford
Managers of housing estates account quarterly for all receipts and payments for which they are responsible. In the Majority of cases repairs are undertaken by the Ministry of Works. The cost of repairs does not pass through the local housing manager's accounts and I regret, therefore, that the information asked for in Question No. 2 is not available.
Mr. Vane:
Would it not be a great improvement if managers of housing estates did have some responsibility for the cost of repairs instead of leaving it all to the Ministry of Works, as at, present, and would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that the management of his Department's housing estates should be put on a businesslike basis comparable with that of other municipal or private estates?
Mr John Wilmot
, Deptford
They are on a comparable basis.
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.
The term "majority" is used in two ways in Parliament. Firstly a Government cannot operate effectively unless it can command a majority in the House of Commons - a majority means winning more than 50% of the votes in a division. Should a Government fail to hold the confidence of the House, it has to hold a General Election. Secondly the term can also be used in an election, where it refers to the margin which the candidate with the most votes has over the candidate coming second. To win a seat a candidate need only have a majority of 1.
