Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:45 pm on 16 May 2017.
Jane Hutt
Labour
2:45,
16 May 2017
Well, Nick Ramsay, the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport is sitting here listening to your first two questions, one of which I did respond to in terms of rare diseases and also the priority we give to that, but also to the state of play in terms of the critical care centre. Yes, it’s wonderful that you have a stretch of the Heads of the Valleys road with more funding coming through innovative finance to complete it, as was raised by Vikki Howells earlier on today, but also seeing the sign, which you will have seen, saying ‘Funded by the European Union’, strikes me that that road would not be built without us being a member of the European Union, and with Welsh Government funding as well. So, that has made a huge impact in terms of the Welsh economy and access to your Constituency. And then, of course, Nick Ramsay, you mentioned the roads that come off the A465. That is a matter of work and partnership together with your local authority.
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.
In a general election, each Constituency chooses an MP to represent them. MPs have a responsibility to represnt the views of the Constituency in the House of Commons. There are 650 Constituencies, and thus 650 MPs. A citizen of a Constituency is known as a Constituent
