As in the United Kingdom and in a number of Commonwealth countries, Members of Parliament (MPs) may be appointed as Ministers of State to aid Ministers in the performance of their functions.
In a difficult economic climate, when all governments must do more with less, we can take these findings to finance ministers and prime ministers who are considering investments in the health and education of their poorest citizens … or to aid ministers in donor countries who must defend foreign aid programmes to skeptical parliaments.
Douglas Alexander, the aid minister, used a different tack.
Jean-Marie Bockel, his overseas-aid minister, was moved to another job.
Other members of the Government who have appealed are Dan Norris, an environment minister, Claire Ward, a justice minister, Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, and Michael Foster, an international-aid minister.
· Overseas aid minister Clare Short breaks cabinet ranks by declaring that a military operation which killed civilians would be "unbearable".
Jan Pronk, aid minister for the usually generous Dutch, said recently the donors could not be expected to go on paying for man-made disasters.
Lord Bach, shadow justice minister and former legal aid minister, says that, in effect, the government appears to be heading off claimants from all angles.
But commentators looking for signs that ministers are now in listening mode witnessed the legal aid minister's contribution with mounting despair.
Speaking in Namibia in 2004, Germany's development aid minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, declared, "The atrocities committed at that time would have been termed genocide".
Bach, who acknowledges that his policies are deeply unpopular among many former colleagues, says: "Any legal aid minister, in their heart of hearts, would like to spend more.
