Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Energy – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 17 June 1991.
Dr Norman Godman
, Greenock and Port Glasgow
12:00,
17 June 1991
When considering licence applications from offshore oil and gas companies wishing to extract those most welcome oil and gas reserves, what emphasis is placed on the safety needs of those employed in extracting those reserves? Does the Minister agree that a modern, up-to-date standby vessel fleet is essential for the safety of those workers and will he therefore impress upon the oil and gas companies the manifest need to replace the aging vessels in the fleet with modern purpose-built vessels? That is what is needed by those employed in the offshore oil and gas industry.
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.
