Question time

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 427.

Cabinet at work

The Cabinet has no legal powers, they are held by Secretaries of State. But it has collective responsibility to Parliament so all members are bound to support Cabinet decisions even if they were not present.

Much of the work of Cabinet is delegated to Committees.

The Prime Minister decides who sits on the Committees and what they are responsible for. Some of the Committees exist for short periods to deal with a particular issue.

The Secretariat calls meetings, circulates papers, prepares the agenda (under the PM's direction), writes and circulates the conclusions, and keeps them.

Ministers are responsible to Parliament for their actions and for those of their departments. They will regularly answer questions in Parliament from MPs of their own party and other parties and will announce new policies to Parliament in ministerial statements.

MPs in the House of Commons and Peers in the House of Lords can ask government ministers questions about the things for which they are responsible. Parliamentary questions are an important way in which Parliament can check on the work of government.

In the House of Commons question time lasts for nearly an hour each day Monday to Thursday. There is a rote which determines which government department answers questions on a particular day and MPs must submit their questions in advance.

After ministers have given an answer the questioner and other MPs selected by the Speaker are able to ask a follow-up question called ‘supplementary' questions.

In the House of Lords questions are addressed to the government as a whole rather than to individual departments. Usually four or five questions will be answered orally each day Monday to Thursday. As in the Commons, it is possible to ask supplementary questions.

In both Houses members are also able to ask questions to be answered in writing and there are many thousands of such questions each year. The answers are published in the Official Report (Hansard).