Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:32 pm on 16 May 2019.
Chris Elmore
Opposition Whip (Commons)
3:32,
16 May 2019
I am exceedingly grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and I congratulate him on securing this truly important debate. He mentions the Commonwealth. We are currently chairing the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting was held here last year. It will be held in Kigali in Rwanda in 18 months’ time. I know it was on the agenda last time, but does he agree with me that it is extremely important that the Foreign Office—I know the Minister cares deeply about this issue—keeps challenging Commonwealth countries on the discrimination of LGBT communities in their own countries? We must preach and change our own Laws of course, but it is right that we use our soft power to influence Commonwealth countries around the world.
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.
Laws are the rules by which a country is governed. Britain has a long history of law making and the laws of this country can be divided into three types:- 1) Statute Laws are the laws that have been made by Parliament. 2) Case Law is law that has been established from cases tried in the courts - the laws arise from test cases. The result of the test case creates a precedent on which future cases are judged. 3) Common Law is a part of English Law, which has not come from Parliament. It consists of rules of law which have developed from customs or judgements made in courts over hundreds of years. For example until 1861 Parliament had never passed a law saying that murder was an offence. From the earliest times courts had judged that murder was a crime so there was no need to make a law.
