Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:31 pm on 5 December 2017.
Julie Morgan
Labour
2:31,
5 December 2017
I have two items I wanted to raise with the leader of the house. Over the weekend, we all heard the news from the Royal Bank of Scotland that so many more bank closures would be taking place, and I think it's 20 in Wales. Two of them are in my Constituency of Cardiff North, in Whitchurch and in the Heath hospital, and already I've been contacted, and I'm sure other Members have been, about what a loss this is to the community. I know that RBS are saying that fewer people are using the bank branches, and I'm sure that is true, but, for elderly and disabled people, it's very important that they do have a bank to go to. And of course, there's the issue of the contribution to the high street and the importance for local businesses. So, I wondered if we could have a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for the economy about this further detrimental step, because we have debated this in the Assembly many times before, but the value of these banks to the community just does not seem to be recognised. So, that was the one statement I wanted.
And, then, the other issue was, on Saturday, I visited Organicafé, as part of Small Business Saturday. It is a very innovative, organic cafe in Birchgrove in my constituency, which has just won Best Cafe in the Welsh Italian Awards. The owners only actually came from Italy two years ago, and they've made a fantastic success there, so I was really pleased to visit it and highlight their achievements. But it made me think that there has been a big growth in cafe culture, and I just wondered whether it would be worth looking at the value of the cafe culture to our economy as well.
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
