Part of Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:15 pm on 13 January 2005.
Caroline Flint
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
4:15,
13 January 2005
I shall check to ensure that there is no misunderstanding and clarify it for the hon. Gentleman. I take his point about different jurisdictions and Laws in different parts of a federal state. The United States of America, for example, has state law as well as federal law.
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.
Laws are the rules by which a country is governed. Britain has a long history of law making and the laws of this country can be divided into three types:- 1) Statute Laws are the laws that have been made by Parliament. 2) Case Law is law that has been established from cases tried in the courts - the laws arise from test cases. The result of the test case creates a precedent on which future cases are judged. 3) Common Law is a part of English Law, which has not come from Parliament. It consists of rules of law which have developed from customs or judgements made in courts over hundreds of years. For example until 1861 Parliament had never passed a law saying that murder was an offence. From the earliest times courts had judged that murder was a crime so there was no need to make a law.
