Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 20 December 2016.
Murdo Fraser
Conservative
The Finance and Constitution Committee said that the system has been operating well but not that the tax take has been in line with expectations. As the Cabinet secretary knows, for the first year, the residential tax take from LBTT was £32 million below the original prediction. He does not need to listen to just us. Why does he not listen to the First Minister’s hand-picked chair of her growth commission, Andrew Wilson, who accepts the link between the rates of LBTT and the low and falling tax take? Perhaps the cabinet secretary can tell us, given that we face three quarters of a billion pounds less for the public finances from LBTT than we were expecting, which public services will be cut as a result of his Government’s incompetence.
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.
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.
