Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:32 pm on 16 May 2017.
Jenny Rathbone
Labour
2:32,
16 May 2017
Some six weeks ago, Julie Morgan and I wrote to the Cabinet Secretary for the environment and planning about the threat to the most vibrant live music venue in Cardiff, which is at Womanby Street, because of the threat of planning applications for a hotel and some residential units as well. I’m delighted to see that the Cabinet Secretary for the environment and planning is now back with us after the really life-changing injury she suffered as a result of an accident. But, now that she’s back, I wondered if the Government could provide us with a statement as to whether it’s able to introduce new planning guidelines to ensure that it is absolutely clear to any developers that the agent of change in any development has to be met by the person who’s making the application, because under the current planning Laws, the whole of Womanby Street could be put out of business if these applicants are successful, and they could then insist that the live music venue has to pay for soundproofing et cetera, which, in any case, is unlikely to be effective because people on the street will cause noise whether they’re inside or outside a venue. Nearly 1,000 jobs are at risk here, as well as many millions of pounds from music tourism. So, I wondered if we could envisage an early statement on how we can change the law to ensure that any new development has to make it clear that they’re going to have to pay for the costs of any mitigation that results from a new development.
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.
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The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
Laws are the rules by which a country is governed. Britain has a long history of law making and the laws of this country can be divided into three types:- 1) Statute Laws are the laws that have been made by Parliament. 2) Case Law is law that has been established from cases tried in the courts - the laws arise from test cases. The result of the test case creates a precedent on which future cases are judged. 3) Common Law is a part of English Law, which has not come from Parliament. It consists of rules of law which have developed from customs or judgements made in courts over hundreds of years. For example until 1861 Parliament had never passed a law saying that murder was an offence. From the earliest times courts had judged that murder was a crime so there was no need to make a law.
