House of Lords written statement – made at on 21 November 2006.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
Government Whip, Government Whip
Subject to parliamentary approval of any necessary supplementary estimate, the National School of Government will be a separate non-ministerial department from January 2007. The national school's departmental expenditure limit (DEL) will be £1,341,000 and the administration costs limit will be £640,000. These figures reflect a transfer from the Cabinet Office estimate with no net change in expenditure.
Within the DEL change, the impact of resources and capital are as set out in the following table.
| New DEL | ||
| £'000 | Voted | Total |
| Resource | 640 | 640 |
| Of which: | ||
| Administration Budget* | 640 | 640 |
| Near-cash in RDEL | 841 | 841 |
| Capital** | 1,271 | 1,271 |
| Depreciation*** | -570 | -570 |
| Total | 1,341 | 1,341 |
| *The total of the "Administration Budget" and the "Near cash in Resource DEL" figures may well be greater than the total resource DEL, due to definitions overlapping. | ||
| **Capital DEL includes items treated as resources in estimates and accounts but which are treated as capital DEL in budgets. | ||
| ***Depreciation, which forms part of resource DEL, is excluded from the total DEL since capital DEL includes capital spending and to include depreciation of those assets would lead to double counting. | ||
The house of Lords is the upper chamber of the Houses of Parliament. It is filled with Lords (I.E. Lords, Dukes, Baron/esses, Earls, Marquis/esses, Viscounts, Count/esses, etc.) The Lords consider proposals from the EU or from the commons. They can then reject a bill, accept it, or make amendments. If a bill is rejected, the commons can send it back to the lords for re-discussion. The Lords cannot stop a bill for longer than one parliamentary session. If a bill is accepted, it is forwarded to the Queen, who will then sign it and make it law. If a bill is amended, the amended bill is sent back to the House of Commons for discussion.
The Lords are not elected; they are appointed. Lords can take a "whip", that is to say, they can choose a party to represent. Currently, most Peers are Conservative.
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.
