Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:00 pm on 5 December 2017.
Carwyn Jones
Labour
2:00,
5 December 2017
The discussions are not with the Secretary of State, particularly, for Wales, but the different Secretaries of State who have portfolio responsibilities in Whitehall. They are called 'deep dives', for reasons that escape me, actually, but what they are looking to do is to see where there is a need—first of all, is there a need for a common framework, secondly, what should that common framework look like. But key to this all, of course, is that any common framework in any area must be agreed and not imposed by the UK Government.
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.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Whitehall is a wide road that runs through the heart of Westminster, starting at Trafalgar square and ending at Parliament. It is most often found in Hansard as a way of referring to the combined mass of central government departments, although many of them no longer have buildings on Whitehall itself.
