Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Foreign and Commonwealth Office – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 19 February 2008.
Louise Ellman
Labour, Liverpool, Riverside
2:30,
19 February 2008
The people of Sderot are under daily bombardment from Gaza, a situation made possible by smuggled arms, by explosives disguised as humanitarian aid and by terrorists coming into Gaza from Iran, Syria and Egypt. Given that reply, will the Minister assure me that he will make renewed representations to both the Palestinian Authority and Egypt? Does he accept that the current representations are inadequate to deal with the growing humanitarian problem faced by the people of Gaza?
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.
