Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Northern Ireland – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 13 June 1991.
Mr William Ross
, East Londonderry
12:00,
13 June 1991
Does the Minister accept that I find that comment surprising, because we seem to have redundancies every year and there seems to be a surplus of teachers at present? In the light of the apparent surplus, will he give careful consideration to making additional funds available so that teachers approaching retirement age can retire early, thus making space at the bottom of the scale for enthusiastic young teachers who have not had to go through the turmoil of endless revisions and reforms during the past two years? That enthusiasm would certainly be welcome in many schools.
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.
