Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:35 pm on 20 September 2016.
Suzy Davies
Conservative
1:35,
20 September 2016
Well, thank you for that, First Minister. On Saturday, I joined a number of colleagues from here, actually, at Swansea’s Stand as One rally. Although Swansea, along with Port Talbot, have managed to resettle a very modest number of refugees, most local authorities in Wales haven’t. Now, Welsh Government and Assembly Members have been clear that we want to welcome refugees here. You announced your Syrian vulnerable person resettlement programme two and a half years ago, yet, last month, we’d only welcomed 112 refugees to Wales. Now, the UK Government says it’s secured the 20,000 places it’s committed to, so what proactive steps have you taken to get more refugees here, more quickly, and why have 13 councils taken no refugees at all?
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.
