Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office – in the House of Commons at 11:30 am on 10 March 2010.
Andrew Robathan
Opposition Deputy Chief Whip (Commons)
11:30,
10 March 2010
There is a suspicion abroad that the whole range of ministerial visits may have had more to do with electioneering for the coming General Election, having used public money to get up there. Will the Minister please tell the House-if she cannot do so now, will she put a full list in the public domain-what party political engagements each Cabinet Minister had when he or she went to Durham?
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
In a general election, each constituency chooses an MP to represent it by process of election. The party who wins the most seats in parliament is in power, with its leader becoming Prime Minister and its Ministers/Shadow Ministers making up the new Cabinet. If no party has a majority, this is known as a hung Parliament. The next general election will take place on or before 3rd June 2010.
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.
