Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 18 May 2009.
John Bercow
Conservative, Buckingham
2:30,
18 May 2009
The Minister of State's reply to Chris Huhne is both measured and reassuring. Can I invite the Minister of State to confer with his right hon. and hon. Friends in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in order that those Ministers can explain once and for all to the Government of Sri Lanka, a country that I recently visited, that the British police are not in the business of seeking to restrain or disperse protestors by the use of water cannon simply because they are holding placards or waving banners of which that Government happen to disapprove? It is not the British 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.
