Oral Answers to Questions — Scotland – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 23 January 2007.
Peter Bone
Conservative, Wellingborough
2:30,
23 January 2007
What average length of time it has taken for a reply to be received to correspondence from him to the First Minister.
David Cairns
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (also Scotland Office), Scotland Office, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (also Scotland Office), Northern Ireland Office
On average, correspondence from the First Minister to the Secretary of State for Scotland has been sent within the 20-day target time scale set by the Scottish Executive.
Peter Bone
Conservative, Wellingborough
That is a most illuminating answer. On
David Cairns
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (also Scotland Office), Scotland Office, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (also Scotland Office), Northern Ireland Office
I understand that the Health Minister in the Scottish Executive has written a reply to the hon. Gentleman, in which he apologises for the delay in responding to him. He also points out that waiting times and waiting lists in Scotland are falling, that the number of patients with a guarantee waiting more than 18 weeks is the lowest ever recorded, and that deaths from cardiac disease, cancer and stroke are all falling after years of increasing. Those things have not happened by accident. They have happened because the UK Government made available to the Scottish Executive record sums of money to invest in the health service, yet the hon. Gentleman voted against every penny—
Pete Wishart
Opposition Whip (Commons), Shadow Spokesperson (Cabinet Office), Shadow Spokesperson (Culture, Media and Sport), Shadow Spokesperson (International Development)
Is it not the case that the Scotland Office has sent a pitiful 350 official letters since 2005, while receiving, on average, seven letters a day from a concerned and anxious public? Does the Minister think that that represents good value for money? Will he explain what exactly is the point of the Scotland Office, given this overwhelmingly burdensome activity?
David Cairns
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (also Scotland Office), Scotland Office, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (also Scotland Office), Northern Ireland Office
Given that some of those letters are from the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends, he is adding to the enormous burden of work that the Scotland Office has to do. All appearances to the contrary, the Scotland Office is a remarkably slim and lean organisation. If the hon. Gentleman looks across Whitehall and across the devolved Administrations, he will see in the Scotland Office a highly efficient organisation that carries out its activities in a very efficient way.
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.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Whitehall is a wide road that runs through the heart of Westminster, starting at Trafalgar square and ending at Parliament. It is most often found in Hansard as a way of referring to the combined mass of central government departments, although many of them no longer have buildings on Whitehall itself.
Michael Martin
Chair, Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, Speaker of the House of Commons, Chair, Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission