Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Wales – in the House of Commons at 11:30 am on 16 March 2011.
David Jones
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales
11:30,
16 March 2011
It is fairly clear that the right hon. Gentleman does not keep in touch with his colleagues in the Assembly, because very recently, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I hosted a trilateral meeting between the Deputy First Minister and the Minister with responsibility for broadband via video link from the Wales Office in Gwydyr house. We are fully engaged in this process, and it is quite wrong for the right hon. Gentleman to suggest that we are not.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
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.
