Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Work and Pensions – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 29 June 2009.
Ken Purchase
Labour, Wolverhampton North East
2:30,
29 June 2009
The Minister will have seen, I hope with alarm, reports in The Observer newspaper suggesting that there is widespread fraud among those in the private sector who are supposed to be assisting people into work. He will perhaps know from constituents, as I do, of job creation schemes that are frankly job substitution schemes. What action is he taking to root out that fraud wherever he finds it? Will he ensure that we think very carefully before there is any further privatisation of that service?
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.
