Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Deputy Prime Minister – in the House of Commons at 11:30 am on 6 January 2015.
Nick Clegg
The Deputy Prime Minister , Lord President of the Council (Privy Council Office), Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Leader of the Liberal Democrats
11:30,
6 January 2015
I wish my hon. Friend, and Members on both sides of the House a happy new year. On the governance arrangements, clearly we need improved, strengthened governance when we give an area more power. As he rightly suggested, however, this should be a bottom-up process; there should not be a one-size-fits-all blueprint imposed from above. So it is not the Government’s policy to say that every area that has a new devolution deal has to subscribe to a particular form of new governance, be it metro mayor or otherwise. That needs to be driven by each local area, and I suspect that they will arrive at different proposals, according to their needs.
The office of Deputy Prime Minister is one that has only existed occasionally in the history of the United Kingdom. Unlike analogous offices in other nations, the Deputy Prime Minister does not have any of the powers of the Prime Minister in the latter's absence and there is no presumption that the Deputy Prime Minister will succeed the Prime Minister.
The post has existed intermittently and there have been a number of disputed occasions as to whether or not the title has actually been conferred.
More from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deputy_Prime_Minister_of_the_United_Kingdom