Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:39 pm on 11 June 2024.
Vaughan Gething
Labour
1:39,
11 June 2024
Well, the truth is that, at the end of this Parliament, living standards have fallen for the first time on record across the UK. It is not a coincidence that the UK Conservative Government has been in charge through that time after the previous decade. As Carolyn Thomas reminded us, more than 14 years of austerity have had an impact on the economy as well as public services. And in this last term, the economy across the UK has flatlined, and other economies who've had the same international challenges have not had the same results. We are paying the price for Conservative economic mismanagement. Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak—the villains of the piece for the position that we now face and it's why it's so important to turn a page.
And I will just deal with the point about taxes. It is manifestly dishonest to claim that taxes are planned to rise in the way the Conservatives have been going about it. Even the senior civil servant in the Treasury has debunked the outrageous and dishonest claims made by the Conservative Party. [Interruption.]
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.
