Part of Health and Social Care Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:45 pm on 24 January 2008.
Stephen O'Brien
Shadow Minister (Health)
2:45,
24 January 2008
I want to record how welcome that is to someone who contends almost weekly with contentious cross-border disputes in which people do not feel that they are getting a fair entitlement when they cannot get the same provision in England that is available 200 yards across the River Dee in Wales. People often cross the river to try to play the system. We need to avoid effectively gaming with our public services as a result of constitutional arrangements. Therefore, I welcome the Amendment, which I think is important.
I make a general plea that perhaps could be transmitted up through the Government into policy making. If the system is to really work, my constituents, just as much as those of my next door neighbour, the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), for example, need to know that their Member has access to a Minister in this place who can be held to account through questioning, rather than simply having a mechanism to go through. Ultimately, my constituents’ power to make something happen lies in them coming to me so that I can rattle the cage and open the door, as we do for all our constituents.
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.
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In the end only a handful of amendments will be incorporated into any bill.
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