Member

It is just as outrageous for people at the other end of the Corridor to use patronage—because that is what I think is happening here—to create additional ministerial duties. Goodness knows what they are all doing; they must be tripping over each other in departments. As far as I can see, under the last Government we seemed to go through a period in which the Ministers were simply told what to do by people in No. 10 and a bunch of unelected special advisers. There is no justification for what is going on here. I very much hope the Government will accept that there is support on all sides of the House for dealing with this anomaly and ensuring that those who serve our country so brilliantly by being Ministers on the Front Bench are properly rewarded for doing so and, more importantly, that no one is prevented from doing so.