Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 25 May 2022.
Jeremy Balfour
Conservative
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. In his answer to my question earlier today, Ben Macpherson stated that the facts that I quoted were wrong. The information came from a Social Security Scotland report of February this year. How do I correct the Official Report to show that those facts were actually correct? Can you encourage ministers and Cabinet secretaries to read reports rather than make up facts?
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.
