Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 7 March 2017.
Mr Neil Hamilton
UKIP
1:41,
7 March 2017
But the First Minister knows that never happens. He has only to look at the recent history of the UK Government’s debt position to see what the reality is. We have a well-being of future generations Act in Wales—a very good thing it is too—but what we’re doing by carrying on with this ‘rake’s progress’ of borrowing, of course, is to hand on to the next generation a massive debt, which they will have to repay. I don’t think that’s a terribly moral position for us to hold.
But, there’s a better solution to this. We don’t have to borrow that money at all. We can look at what the Government spends money on at the moment and cut without any risk to anybody in Britain being disadvantaged. Let’s just take the foreign aid budget, for example, on which we’re spending £12 billion this year. If we just knocked £3.5 billion off that £12 billion, that would amount to the same sort of saving that the Cabinet Secretary for finance wants the Chancellor of the exchequer to avoid deducting from the Welsh Government’s budget. There are plenty of reasons why we should cut the foreign aid budget. So, is the First Minister putting the interests of people in foreign countries before the interests of the people of Wales?
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 chancellor of the exchequer is the government's chief financial minister and as such is responsible for raising government revenue through taxation or borrowing and for controlling overall government spending.
The chancellor's plans for the economy are delivered to the House of Commons every year in the Budget speech.
The chancellor is the most senior figure at the Treasury, even though the prime minister holds an additional title of 'First Lord of the Treasury'. He normally resides at Number 11 Downing Street.
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.
