Clause 13 - Power of Secretary of State and National Assembly for Wales to give financial assistance for purposes related to education or childcare
Education Bill
4:45 pm
Mr Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury, Conservative)
On a point of order, Mr. Griffiths. May we have some guidance? A feature of the Bill—I do not understand how this came about—is that rafts of it were printed using italics rather than the normal typeface. We would have tested that if we had had a chance to discuss clause 12, but it is clearly germane to clause 13. There was an instruction on the manuscript copy of amendment No. 17, which relates to clause 12, to leave out the italics. That has been translated on the Order Paper as ''leave out subsection (1)(b)'', as though the whole subsection was intended to be left out. That was not the Opposition's intention, and it will pertain to later amendments.
The purpose of the amendment was to probe whether the italicised typeface means anything. If it does not, were the Government in such a rush to publish the Bill that they could not get the typing correct? If I can use this point of order, that may explain the earlier sotto voce and rather cheap comment from a Government Member that suggested that Opposition Members had not talked to each other properly. I respect the independence of Back Benchers in scrutinising legislation, but the speed with which amendments have to be tabled so that they are in order
meant that it was not possible to have a full series of meetings that might have helped to avoid the problem that I have just cited. I would appreciate your guidance, Mr. Griffiths.