Stewart Jackson (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Peterborough, Conservative)

This clause is relatively easy and uncontentious, so we will not burden the Committee. It inserts the new subsection (3)(a) into section 108 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, requiring parties to a construction contract to provide in the contract the adjudicator’s power to correct a clerical or typographical error. We do not have any problems with this tidying-up exercise. It is broadly welcomed by most members of the construction community and we are happy, subject to the Minister’s comments, not to divide the Committee.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Communities and Local Government; Portsmouth North, Labour)

As the hon. Gentleman said, this clause ensures that adjudicators can, generally speaking, make corrections to their decisions, and inserts into the 1996 Act the requirement that the construction contract should provide that

“the adjudicator has the power to correct a clerical or typographical error”

in his decision

“arising by accident or omission”.

This puts on a clear statutory footing an adjudicator’s ability to amend an obvious error in their decision. The 1996 Act is currently silent as to the power of an adjudicator to correct such errors.

Reverting to the previous clause, the review of the statutory scheme will be in 18 months.