Mr John Hutton (Minister of State, Department of Health; Barrow & 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.

Mr Simon Burns (West Chelmsford, Conservative)

The Minister has given a lucid explanation of the reason behind the amendment. If I understand him correctly it is, to all intents and purposes, a technical amendment to allow changes to other legislation. He mentioned the Adoption Bill, International Development Bill and the police Bill. Does the Minister anticipate, during the current Session of Parliament, a further health Bill from his Department that would also have this amendment applied to it?

Mr John Hutton (Minister of State, Department of Health; Barrow & Furness, Labour)

No.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 37, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 38 and 39 ordered to stand part of the Bill.