Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 2:19 pm on 19 June 2024.
Altaf Hussain
Conservative
2:19,
19 June 2024
Cabinet Secretary, it is not just the projects that the Welsh Government funds directly that we should be concerned about, but also those funded by grants and loans. For example, a registered social landlord in receipt of numerous Welsh Government grants is pressing ahead with plans to destroy a unique habitat, home to many species of rare flora and fauna, to build social housing. In order to mitigate the habitat loss, they propose to provide an alternative plot of land.
'Why don't they use the alternative plot of land for housing?', I hear you ask. Because it's more expensive to build houses there, so the rare species will have to find alternative accommodation instead. How can this be allowed to happen in a nature emergency? Therefore, Cabinet Secretary, will you commit to ensuring that any organisation in receipt of public funding, whether directly or in the form of a grant or loan from a public authority, practices what the Welsh Government preaches, and protects nature and biodiversity at all costs? Thank you.
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.
