Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Children, Schools and Families – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 26 January 2009.
Tom Levitt
Labour, High Peak
2:30,
26 January 2009
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer, which is good news for children in my Constituency. I only wish that such funding for youth services had been available when I was a member of Derbyshire county council between 1993 and 1997. Then, because youth services were not on a statutory footing, they were especially vulnerable to the savage cuts imposed by the Conservative Government of the day. Will my right hon. Friend give me an assurance that measures are in place to protect the funding for youth services? That funding should be on a statutory basis and so not vulnerable to the sort of behaviour that we had from the Opposition in those years long ago.
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".
In a general election, each Constituency chooses an MP to represent them. MPs have a responsibility to represnt the views of the Constituency in the House of Commons. There are 650 Constituencies, and thus 650 MPs. A citizen of a Constituency is known as a Constituent
