Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 20 March 1997.
Bob Spink
, Castle Point
12:00,
20 March 1997
Knowing how assiduously and effectively my right hon. Friend the Minister of State performs her duties, I ask whether she has found time to visit any prisons in the past few months in order to assess for herself the effectiveness of the work undertaken to cut off the supply of drugs to prisoners. Does she agree that we certainly need to do more work to continue to stop drugs reaching prisoners so that prisons may be austere but reforming institutions, rather than the playhouses that Opposition Members would make them?
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 Opposition are the political parties in the House of Commons other than the largest or Government party. They are called the Opposition because they sit on the benches opposite the Government in the House of Commons Chamber. The largest of the Opposition parties is known as Her Majesty's Opposition. The role of the Official Opposition is to question and scrutinise the work of Government. The Opposition often votes against the Government. In a sense the Official Opposition is the "Government in waiting".
