Part of Orders of the Day — Finance Bill. – in the House of Commons am ar 29 Mehefin 1939.
Mr James Ede
, South Shields
I wish to reinforce the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) in view of the right hon. Gentleman's explanation to my hon. Friend the Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Garro Jones). I cannot follow why a local authority could not be instructed, when placing a contract, to intimate by a notice on the contract itself that it was a contract on which grants would be payable under the Air-Raid Precaution or Civil Defence Measures and that therefore any profits on it must be included in the return to the Minister. I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman is steadily building up our case so completely that at last he will convince himself.
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.
