Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Business, Innovation and Skills – in the House of Commons at 9:30 am on 8 January 2015.
William Bain
Labour, Glasgow North East
9:30,
8 January 2015
I am grateful for the Minister’s answer, but last month the Office for National Statistics said that exports had remained largely flat for the past four years, and the Office for Budget Responsibility and the British Chambers of Commerce both downgraded their forecasts for net trade this year, so can he confirm that with this failure on economic rebalancing, his targets for Britain to double our exports to £1 trillion by 2020 and to get 100,000 more firms exporting from Britain will be missed?
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.
