Clause 37 - Supplementary and consequential provision etc
NHS Reform and Health Care Professions Bill
2:45 pm
Mr John Hutton (Minister of State, Department of Health; Barrow and Furness, Labour)
I beg to move amendment No. 257, in page 42, line 15, at end insert—
''including an enactment contained in an Act passed in the same session as this Act''.
The amendment extends clause 37 so that supplementary and consequential provisions may be made by order in relation to Bills passed in the same Session as this one. For example, other Bills passed in this Session that refer to health authorities, will be able to be updated to refer to strategic health authorities by order without us having to wait for another opportunity to make primary legislation.
Various other Bills are in progress in this Session, such as the Adoption and Children Bill, the International Development Bill and the police Bill, which currently contain references to health authorities. Those will need to be amended after enactment to read ''strategic health authorities''. We had originally thought that that could be done by an order under clause 37 of this Bill, but the normal rule of interpretation would confine the section 37 power to enactments passed prior to this Act. It would therefore be correct to extend clause 37 to include explicitly Bills enacted in the same Session as this one.