Part of Enterprise Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 11:30 am on 7 May 2002.
Miss Melanie Johnson
Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry
11:30,
7 May 2002
Indeed, Mr. Conway, I am happy for the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire to become technical, and delighted that he is getting stuck into the detail of the Bill. If there were no adverse competition finding, the Secretary of State could only mitigate or eliminate the competition remedy on the relevant public interest grounds. If there were no adverse competition finding, the Competition Commission would simply publish its report. It would not send it to the Secretary of State for a decision. In other words, a report will not reach the Secretary of State if there has been no adverse finding by the Competition Commission.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
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.
