– in the Scottish Parliament at on 1 February 2024.
Finlay Carson
Conservative
Will the First Minister join me in welcoming the very positive progress that has been made in the negotiations that are likely to see the restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont? Will he also welcome the huge boost to jobs and investment that could be delivered as part of the proposed investment zone extending to Stranraer and Cairnryan, in my Constituency, which is the main point of entry for goods from Northern Ireland that go to Great Britain along the A75 and the A77?
Humza Yousaf
Scottish National Party
I absolutely welcome what I hope will be the restoration of power sharing in Northern Ireland. For too long, the people of Northern Ireland have had to put up with no elected Government being in place. It is good news for the people of Northern Ireland, and we welcome it whole-heartedly.
I have been to a number of British-Irish Council meetings over the years and during my time as First Minister. In the past couple of meetings that I have attended as First Minister, the absence of any elected members from Northern Ireland has been noted, and their presence has been missed. As part of the Good Friday agreement, it is incredibly important that power sharing be restored.
It would be fair to say that we were not given any advance sight of the command paper that was published by the UK Government yesterday. There was no meaningful engagement by the Westminster Government. The UK Government appears to have decided unilaterally that there will be no border control post at Cairnryan—it has not consulted us on that decision. I note that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland offered a £3.3 billion package to address public spending and pay pressures in Northern Ireland. Again, that is welcome, but those pressures exist in Scotland and, I suspect, in Wales, too. I know that the Deputy First Minister and her Welsh counterpart have said to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that devolved Governments should be treated fairly, in line with the Barnett formula.
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.
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
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
An economic mechanism used by the Treasury to adjust automatically the amounts of public expenditure allocated to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, to reflect changes in spending levels allocated to public services in England, England and Wales or Great Britain as a whole.
