A central limit theorem with explicit error bound, and a large deviation result are proved for a sequence of weakly dependent random variables of a special form. As a corollary, under certain conditions on the function $f: [0,1] \to \mathbb{R}$ a central limit theorem and a large deviation result are obtained for the sum $\sum_{n=0}^{N-1} f(x_n)$, where $x_n$ is the base $b$ van der Corput sequence for an arbitrary integer $b \ge 2$. Similar results are also proved for the $L^p$ discrepancy of the same sequence for $1 \le p < \infty$. The main methods used in the proofs are the Berry-Esseen theorem and Fourier analysis.