Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:19 pm on 11 June 2024.
Vaughan Gething
Labour
2:19,
11 June 2024
The Member raises an important point that I believe goes across party lines. Our challenge is how we take effective action to reduce river pollution that is an active problem for biodiversity within our rivers, but also affects land use as well. It's why the river pollution summit is such an important process. I've seen the evidence on the apportionment of phosphorus loading into rivers, and the evidence, which has been peer reviewed, does show it's rural land use that has the biggest impact. It's why we've got to have a conversation around this, not just with people that make use of rural land, but, actually, with a range of other sectors too. That's part of what the river pollution summit process allows us to do.
We're also going through Natural Resources Wales's fourth cycle of river basin management plans. That's a key mechanism for improving water quality. I do think, as we go through those, and we get to draft stages, it'd be worth having a conversation with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs about whether there's an opportunity for independent peer review at that point around the plans. That's something that I think is well worth having a conversation about, between the Member and the Cabinet Secretary, to understand how we get some objectivity into not just what the plans are, but how effective they're likely to be and then how they get reviewed as they are implemented.
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.
