Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:11 pm on 18 December 2018.
Lord Blunkett
Labour
3:11,
18 December 2018
My Lords, will the Minister responsible actually confirm that should the Augar report recommend a reduction in the amount of student loan to £6,500, the amount that the ONS reclassification would result in would thereby be much smaller, but the Majority of students would actually pay exactly the same amount, thereby disadvantaging universities without advantaging students?
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.
The term "majority" is used in two ways in Parliament. Firstly a Government cannot operate effectively unless it can command a majority in the House of Commons - a majority means winning more than 50% of the votes in a division. Should a Government fail to hold the confidence of the House, it has to hold a General Election. Secondly the term can also be used in an election, where it refers to the margin which the candidate with the most votes has over the candidate coming second. To win a seat a candidate need only have a majority of 1.
