Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:37 pm on 8 February 2022.
Mark Drakeford
Labour
1:37,
8 February 2022
Well, Llywydd, thank you very much to Paul Davies for what he said, as Chair of the committee, and I look forward to the work that the committee will be doing to assist all of us to make the case to the Treasury to do what the Conservatives said in their manifesto during the General Election. I don't think that there is any doubt now that they have rolled back from what they promised, and the work of the committee will be a help, I'm sure, to make the case again to the UK Government to fund Wales as they had said they would.
So, there is a new system that has come into force to help us to discuss issues across the United Kingdom. That hasn't happened yet, and, of course, things that have happened in Northern Ireland over the past week complicate the arrangements for these discussions as regards not having Northern Ireland present around the table. I look forward to seeing when the first meeting of this new system will be arranged, because that will be an opportunity for us to make the points that I have made today, and that Ministers in the Welsh Government make every time we can, to Ministers on a UK Government level.
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.
In a general election, each constituency chooses an MP to represent it by process of election. The party who wins the most seats in parliament is in power, with its leader becoming Prime Minister and its Ministers/Shadow Ministers making up the new Cabinet. If no party has a majority, this is known as a hung Parliament. The next general election will take place on or before 3rd June 2010.
The Conservatives are a centre-right political party in the UK, founded in the 1830s. They are also known as the Tory party.
With a lower-case ‘c’, ‘conservative’ is an adjective which implies a dislike of change, and a preference for traditional values.
