Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 10:41 am on 4 September 2025.
Christine Jardine
Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh West
10:41,
4 September 2025
Over the summer, a constituent who is a mortgage adviser came to me with concerns about so-called conditional selling by estate agents, where prospective home buyers feel pressurised to take the estate agent’s in-house mortgage rather than risk losing out on a house. This practice breaches the Estate Agents Act 1979. It has been raised in investigations by the Financial Times and “Panorama”, which suggested that the practice is common. Could the Leader of the House point me to the Minister responsible so that we can have a discussion? Perhaps we could have a debate on this matter in Government time.
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.
