Part of Orders of the Day — Industrial Training Bill – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 21 January 1964.
Mr William Whitelaw
, Penrith and The Border
12:00,
21 January 1964
These two Amendments arise from an undertaking I gave during Committee in reply to an Amendment moved by the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice). As the House will appreciate, under Clause 4(1) a small firm can under certain circumstances be exempted from paying the levy. As the Bill stands, a similar exemption would be applied under Clause 6(1) to the provision of information.
The hon. Member for East Ham, North argued in Committee that, although it might be right under special circumstances to exclude small firms from paying the levy, nevertheless it might inhibit industrial training boards if they could not get the information they wanted from those small firms. As I undertook, we have considered the point very carefully since the Committee stage and agree with the conclusion of the hon. Member. I think he will notice that these Amendments are in exactly the words he proposed in Committee.
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.
As a bill passes through Parliament, MPs and peers may suggest amendments - or changes - which they believe will improve the quality of the legislation.
Many hundreds of amendments are proposed by members to major bills as they pass through committee stage, report stage and third reading in both Houses of Parliament.
In the end only a handful of amendments will be incorporated into any bill.
The Speaker - or the chairman in the case of standing committees - has the power to select which amendments should be debated.
