Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I suppose that it is relative. The clause allows the Secretary of State to rectify a mistake in any order made under the chapter; for example, an order making a structural and/or boundary change, or an order containing incidental or consequential provision. If the original order contained a mistake—for example, an omission or incomplete information supplied by a local authority—the Secretary of State may correct it. Subsection (2) makes it clear that a ““mistake”” includes, "““a provision contained in or omitted from the order in reliance on inaccurate or incomplete information supplied by any public body””." Where the Secretary of State makes an order under the provisions of this chapter, provisions of that order may take effect on the coming into force of the order and therefore, having taken effect, be spent. Were there to be an error or omission in one of the spent provisions of the order, the Secretary of State would be unable to address it through the normal provisions in the Interpretation Act 1978, which allow the Secretary of State certain powers to amend orders previously made. For example, if the order’s consequential provisions inadvertently included or omitted a parish council, which would be a serious omission, and we could not address it using the powers of the Interpretation Act 1978, we would use the powers in this clause to correct it. I assure the Committee that it is not the Government’s intention to use the clause to change the order and depart from it, which would be a misuse. This is a common-sense provision, because we all know that errors or omissions are inevitable when orders are made within a tight time scale. There is a precedent for this. The previous Administration took similar powers under Section 26(6) of the Local Government Act 1992. The clause is a safeguard measure. I hope that noble Lords will be content with that explanation.