Children and Adoption Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 11:15 am on 21 March 2006.
Tim Loughton
Shadow Minister (Children)
I have a simple question about the schedule, which is very short and seems to revolve around the word “and”. Can the Minister explain what it does?
Maria Eagle
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education and Skills) (Children and Families)
Schedule 3 makes two small repeals of words in the Children Act 1989 in order to enable the insertion of amendments dealt with elsewhere in the Bill, including amendments to provisions on family assistance orders in section 16 of the Children Act 1989.
The first is the removal of the word “and” from section 14B(1) for reasons of grammatical sense. The second is the repeal of section 16(3)(a), which gives effect to Clause 6 on family assistance orders by removing the condition that they are to be used only in exceptional circumstances. We considered the policy when dealing with clause 6; schedule 3 is a minor consequential Amendment. I hope that I have satisfied the hon. Gentleman’s need to know.
Tim Loughton
Shadow Minister (Children)
I am very satisfied, as nearly always, with the Minister’s answer. However, we are talking about later amendments to the Children Act 1989 that are not included in the version of that Act issued by the Vote Office. I reiterate an earlier comment, that it might be useful if Ministers were to make updates of the Children Act available to the Committee if amendments refer to specific parts of it. It is difficult to get hold of them otherwise.
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.
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.
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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.
