Part of Adoption and Children Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:00 pm on 17 January 2002.
Meg Munn
Labour/Co-operative, Sheffield, Heeley
4:00,
17 January 2002
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that any person who wants such information to be disclosed can apply to the court, giving their reasons, and the court will give due consideration to those reasons? The papers are the property of the court in order to preserve the confidentiality that we would expect in those circumstances.
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.
