Part of Orders of the Day — Civil Defence Bill. – in the House of Commons at on 12 June 1939.
Mr James Ede
, South Shields
The right hon. Gentleman says that it is a technical drafting point, but I am informed that in London the county council is the fire authority and the highway authority is the Metropolitan Borough Council. When you get into the county areas, you have in some cases the Minister of Transport as the highway authority for the trunk roads and the county council for the county roads. The county is not the fire authority at all. The county district authority, as the fire authority, is responsible only for the roads which I have not already enumerated. It is very important to get this point absolutely clear.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
