Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:33 pm on 15 February 2017.
Mark Drakeford
Labour
1:33,
15 February 2017
I agree with Andrew R.T. Davies that you’ve got to take the fiscal framework alongside the IFS green budget, because the one does have some potential to mitigate the other. The £600 million figure in the report produced by the IFS and the Wales Governance Centre is within the range of £500 million to £1 billion that we set out in our estimate of what the fiscal framework would bring to Wales. It’s there, Llywydd, to be balanced against some of the risks that we are taking on as part of the fiscal framework. Nevertheless, our estimate is close to that of yesterday’s report, but shows that, even when those risks are taken into account, the fiscal framework will bring additional revenue to Wales, and we will want to put it to work to mitigate some of the cuts that the green budget demonstrates are coming our way.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
