Annabelle Ewing
Scottish National Party
5. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the operation of the town centre fund. (S5O-03001)
Derek Mackay
Scottish National Party
The £50 million town centre fund, which I announced in the budget, has been developed in partnership with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and was launched on 1 March. The fund will be distributed across all local authorities to enable them to stimulate and support a wide range of investments that encourage town centres and city neighbourhoods to diversify and flourish. The distribution of the fund was agreed jointly by Scottish Government and COSLA leaders. It will be for local authorities to allocate the fund against the themes of “Town Centre Action Plan—the Scottish Government response”.
Annabelle Ewing
Scottish National Party
I thank the Cabinet secretary warmly for allocating the highest amount—some £4.3 million—of that funding to Fife Council. Can the cabinet secretary clarify how, as the member of the Scottish Parliament for the Cowdenbeath Constituency, I can ensure that towns in my constituency get their fair share of that very welcome Scottish Government funding?
Derek Mackay
Scottish National Party
First, I welcome the warm welcome from Annabelle Ewing for those resources, which will be transformative for our town centres. The precise figure for Fife is £4,335,000. The campaign to ensure that there is fairness for every part of the Constituency that Annabelle Ewing represents has, I think, already begun, and Fife Council will be well aware of it. It will be for the council to determine the distribution of that money.
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.
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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.
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In a general election, each Constituency chooses an MP to represent them. MPs have a responsibility to represnt the views of the Constituency in the House of Commons. There are 650 Constituencies, and thus 650 MPs. A citizen of a Constituency is known as a Constituent
