– in a Public Bill Committee at on 14 May 2019.
Roger Gale
Conservative, North Thanet
9:25,
14 May 2019
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. You will have noticed that I am not your Chairman, but I am for the moment; I hope the Chairman will arrive in due course. In the meantime, I have a couple of announcements before we start: please turn off your mobile phones and anything else electronic that makes a noise, and please remember that tea and coffee are not allowed in the room during sittings.
We will consider first the programme motion on the Amendment paper, then the motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication, and then the motion to allow us to deliberate in private about our questions before the oral evidence session. In view of the time available, I hope we can take those matters formally, without debate. I call the Minister to move the programme motion in his name, which I gather was discussed yesterday by the Programming Sub-Committee.
As a bill passes through Parliament, MPs and peers may suggest amendments - or changes - which they believe will improve the quality of the legislation.
Many hundreds of amendments are proposed by members to major bills as they pass through committee stage, report stage and third reading in both Houses of Parliament.
In the end only a handful of amendments will be incorporated into any bill.
The Speaker - or the chairman in the case of standing committees - has the power to select which amendments should be debated.
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.
