Elizabeth Smith
Conservative
Given the answer that the First Minister provided to Willie Rennie earlier, what specific support can she offer to the Crieff Hydro hotel group in light of the news earlier this week that there will be substantial redundancies in what is a major chain of hotels in the Scottish tourism sector at the height of the tourist season?
Nicola Sturgeon
Scottish National Party
As I said, I will talk to the Scottish Tourism Alliance tomorrow, but more immediately than that—and this is perhaps even more relevant— the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and Tourism will make a statement in Parliament this afternoon.
Obviously, I will not cover the ground that Fergus Ewing will cover later, but one of the key things that we want to try to do within all the uncertainties that we face right now is to give as much clarity as possible to the tourism sector and the hospitality sector about when they can start to plan to reopen, albeit in a safe and perhaps different way to how they normally operate. However, Fergus Ewing will cover that ground this afternoon and I hope that that will be welcomed by the sector, albeit that it comes with the caveat that it is all dependent on our continuing to suppress this virus in the way that we are currently doing.
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.
