Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:43 pm on 7 March 2017.
Mr Neil Hamilton
UKIP
1:43,
7 March 2017
Of course there is a humanitarian case for aid and nobody is against that, but a lot of our aid budget actually goes to countries that are spending a huge amount of money upon projects that we wouldn’t regard for a moment as humanitarian. For example, we’re increasing our aid to Pakistan this year by £100 million to nearly £450 million a year. Pakistan, this year, is increasing its defence budget by £635 million to £6.7 billion. They spend far more per capita on defence than we do in the United Kingdom. They’ve also got a nuclear programme and a space programme. So, what we’re in effect doing by increasing the amount of aid that we’re giving to Pakistan is indirectly funding their military, space and nuclear budgets.
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.
