Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:50 pm on 4 July 2017.
Mr Neil Hamilton
UKIP
1:50,
4 July 2017
Diolch, Llywydd. I’d like to continue this line of questioning with the First Minister, if I may. Is it not a tragedy that the Circuit of Wales project appears to have been strangled not because of any credible doubts about the viability of the racetrack project—because there was nothing in the Cabinet Secretary’s statement to that effect—but because of a technical internal accounting device by Her Majesty’s Treasury and the Office for National Statistics? Shouldn’t we look through the form of the accounts to the substance of the project? It’s an entirely private sector-funded project upfront. All that the Welsh Government was asked for was a guarantee, for which they would be paid £3 million a year. It was secured on the assets that are to be constructed, because the guarantee doesn’t even begin until the construction phase is completed, and 100 per cent of the assets were available to secure what was a loan of less than 50 per cent of the funding. So, on the face of it, that appears to be pretty good security. And is there not a way through this, even at this late stage, that we could continue to look at the possibility of untying the Gordian knot with the Treasury and see if there is an imaginative solution to this in accounting terms, which would enable the private sector money to be put in, which, on balance, I think would be better than for the Welsh Government to have to commit its own money upfront, which is now what is proposed?
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 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.
