Clause 1

Part of Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:00 am on 9 March 2010.

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Photo of John Hemming John Hemming Liberal Democrat, Birmingham, Yardley 10:00, 9 March 2010

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that Intervention. We are in agreement—we are effectively dealing with the insolvency of countries, which do not have the revenue. If there is insolvency of countries, we are asking whether the poundage applies to everyone. That is a fair process to resolve a situation. If a country in that situation decides, in the interest of its long-term credit rating, to put particular effort into paying someone, that will be a different issue. However, that is an issue  for the countries themselves. The responsibility is always with lenders to consider the ability of the people to whom they are lending funds to pay them back. There have been many problems with people doling out money without considering whether people can pay it back. We see that in the banking crisis that we have had ourselves. To that extent, I am supportive of the Bill, and I should congratulate the hon. Member for Northampton, North on promoting it.

Clause

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.

intervention

An intervention is when the MP making a speech is interrupted by another MP and asked to 'give way' to allow the other MP to intervene on the speech to ask a question or comment on what has just been said.