Cabinet Office – in the House of Commons at on 13 January 2022.
Andrew Gwynne
Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
What consequences staff have faced who were involved in a video reported in the media in December 2021, which showed members of the Prime Minister’s office rehearsing for a press conference.
Michael Ellis
Paymaster General
Following the long-standing practice of successive Administrations, Her Majesty’s Government do not comment on individual disciplinary matters. The terms of reference for the Cabinet Office’s investigation have been published and the Government have committed to publishing the findings of that investigation.
Andrew Gwynne
Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
But now we know that there were parties at Downing Street in lockdown and the Prime Minister was present. It is serious. He knowingly breached the rules that he himself set for the country. He broke the law, and over recent weeks he has told the House things that turned out not to be true, breaking the ministerial code. Allegra Stratton paid the price for joking about parties at Downing Street—parties that the Prime Minister attended. Why is it always the little people who get the chop to save this unsaveable Prime Minister?
Michael Ellis
Paymaster General
As the hon. Gentleman knows, this matter is under the purview of a senior civil servant—the second permanent Secretary at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, who is an expert having been director general of propriety and ethics. She is carefully looking into the matter. She is a highly respected civil servant with probity, independence and integrity, and she will report in due course, swiftly. So the hon. Gentleman will no doubt wish to wait before he jumps to any unwarranted and unevidenced conclusions.
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.
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.
A Permanent Secretary is a top civil servant- there is a permanent secretary in each Office/Dept./Ministry Permanent Secretaries are always Knights, (I.E. "Sir" or "Dame"). BBC Sitcom "Yes Minster" portrays Sir Humprey Appelby as a Permanent Secretary, steretypically spouting lots of red tape and bureacracy.
