Part of Petition - Public Confidence in the Prime Minister – in the House of Commons at 4:05 pm on 30 April 2019.
Nicky Morgan
Chair, Treasury Committee, Chair, Treasury Committee
4:05,
30 April 2019
I thank the Minister very much for his response. Some of these issues might well be commercially sensitive, so I wonder whether he would be willing to meet me and the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend Edward Argar at an appropriate point, to discuss some of that interest in more detail with officials. It would be helpful to have such discussions, perhaps on an ongoing basis, until the future of the site has been secured.
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.
