Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office – in the House of Commons at 11:30 am on 25 June 2014.
Nick Brown
Labour, Newcastle upon Tyne East
11:30,
25 June 2014
Which Departments have responded to his cross-departmental review of check-off deductions of union subscriptions.
Francis Maude
The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
We have asked Departments to review their own arrangements. The civil service management code requires Departments to recover the cost of the provision of this service, but most do not do so. These reviews, therefore, are very timely.
Nick Brown
Labour, Newcastle upon Tyne East
A number of Secretaries of State have already rejected the idea. The only one to take it forward ended up in court. They lost and had costs found against the Government. There is no public interest or cost saving in what the right hon. Gentleman is doing, so why does he persist in attacking the Government’s own employees for trying to act in combination by joining a trade union?
Francis Maude
The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
This is in no sense an attack on membership of trade unions. [Hon. Members: “Yes, it is.”] We can see who speaks for the trade unions and for their paymasters. The right hon. Gentleman ought to know better, from his experience. Why is it that many trade unions do not rely on check-off at all but use the modern means of connection with their members of direct debit, which is available to all?
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.
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