Part of Enterprise Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:15 am on 16 May 2002.
Miss Melanie Johnson
Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry
10:15,
16 May 2002
When I moved the resolution of the Programming Sub-Committee at our first sitting on 16 April, I said that I was confident that we could look forward to constructive scrutiny of the Bill. The Committee has taken full advantage of that opportunity, with your able assistance, Mr. Conway, and that of Mr. Beard, who is not with us this morning. He will, I am sure, be devastated to find that there is no sitting this afternoon.
The Bill will proceed in even better shape than it enjoyed on introduction. That is down to the hard work of the whole Committee, to which I pay tribute. We sat for some 44 hours over 18 sittings; 612 amendments and 15 new clauses were tabled, of which 174 amendments and five new clauses were tabled by the Government.
I thank all Opposition Members for their constructive approach to the Bill. I am grateful for their support for the Majority of measures and for their tireless endeavours to make improvements to the text. I trust that they feel that it has been worthwhile. We have accepted a number of proposals and the Bill is all the better for that. The Committee has done an excellent job, in improving not just the content but our understanding of the Bill. I pay tribute to the hard work of all Committee members and to the excellent chairmanship that has steered the Bill through.
I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for E-Commerce and Competitiveness for stepping into the breach with such assurance for four of the sittings. Finally, I join you in thanking the Clerks, the Hansard reporters, the doorkeepers, the police officers and the officials from the Department of Trade and Industry, who have supported us so ably, for all their work in ensuring that our deliberations could be constructive and come to this ready conclusion.
The term "majority" is used in two ways in Parliament. Firstly a Government cannot operate effectively unless it can command a majority in the House of Commons - a majority means winning more than 50% of the votes in a division. Should a Government fail to hold the confidence of the House, it has to hold a General Election. Secondly the term can also be used in an election, where it refers to the margin which the candidate with the most votes has over the candidate coming second. To win a seat a candidate need only have a majority of 1.
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.
The Opposition are the political parties in the House of Commons other than the largest or Government party. They are called the Opposition because they sit on the benches opposite the Government in the House of Commons Chamber. The largest of the Opposition parties is known as Her Majesty's Opposition. The role of the Official Opposition is to question and scrutinise the work of Government. The Opposition often votes against the Government. In a sense the Official Opposition is the "Government in waiting".
