Part of Health and Social Care Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:45 pm on 24 January 2008.
Brian Jenkins
Labour, Tamworth
2:45,
24 January 2008
I ask the Minister for clarification. If a person is regularly taken into day care on a regular basis, a local authority may provide direct payments. Some local authorities, I understand, will give a direct payment for the individual, but then refuse to allow them to go into public authority day care so that they must buy that provision in the public sector. Is the Minister’s intention to clarify that if a place is provided by a public authority, the people with the direct payments should have the opportunity to purchase that requirement from that authority?
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.
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.