Part of Equality Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 12:45 pm on 7 July 2009.
Mark Harper
Shadow Minister (Work and Pensions)
12:45,
7 July 2009
I shall not get very far with my argument, but I shall begin. I start where the hon. Gentleman left off on 18 June, and he made a good case today. He referred to the Solicitor-General’s response to the debate on the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare. In response to that debate, the Solicitor-General mentioned a number of concerns—I shall deal with those in a moment—but said she that was engaged with the issue and impressed by my hon. Friend’s arguments. Although she urged him to withdraw the Amendment and consider the issue, she confirmed that she would write to him on the matter or speak to him directly in Committee. The hon. Gentleman just made that point, and that is effectively what we are now doing.
Picking up on the first of the Solicitor-General’s concerns, which was about the extent to which prohibiting pre-employment inquiries would damage the ability of employers to make—
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.
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.
The Speaker - or the chairman in the case of standing committees - has the power to select which amendments should be debated.
