Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Agriculture, Fisheries and Food – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 1 February 2001.
Elliot Morley
Parliamentary Secretary (Fisheries and the Countryside), Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
12:00,
1 February 2001
My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food announced a substantial increase in the countryside stewardship budget in December 1999. As part of the England rural development programme, £500 million is allocated to the scheme over the seven-year period 2000–06. Each year, we will be accepting roughly double the number of applications that we did in 1999.
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.
