Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 4:08 pm on 30 November 2022.
Lord Evans of Weardale
Crossbench
4:08,
30 November 2022
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The Minister may recall that 12 months ago, we issued a report, Upholding Standards in Public Life, which made a number of recommendations for improving and reinforcing the role of the independent adviser. We have not yet had a full response from the Government on that report. Does the Minister agree that it might be easier to find strong candidates if there had been agreement from the Government that the independent adviser should be able to initiate their own investigations, and that that would be reassuring to the public?
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.
