The House will not be sitting.

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Oral questions: At 14:30, Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on the length of time between charging suspects and trials taking place; data from the Office for National Statistics; river pollution from sources other than sewage; and National Insurance rates on partnerships.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third Reading): This Bill to reform the planning approval system has already passed the House of Commons and is now expected to clear the House of Lords. As outlined in Thursday’s Commons section (below), the Government has been defeated seven times in the Lords on amendments to this Bill.

At Third Reading, Peers decide whether to approve the Bill. Unlike the Commons, the Lords can still make amendments at Third Reading, but only for the purposes of clarifying uncertainties, improving the drafting, or fulfilling undertakings made by the Government at earlier stages. No such amendments have so far been tabled.

Because Peers have amended the Bill, it will return to the House of Commons on Wednesday for MPs to consider the Lords’ changes. Several rounds of ‘ping-pong’ between the two Houses may be needed before both Houses can agree on the same text. (House of Lords Library briefing)

Crime and Policing Bill (Committee, day 1): This is the first of 12 days currently allocated for Committee Stage on the Government’s Bill to reform the criminal justice and policing system. This is the longest Bill in this Session to date – it was 429 pages when it arrived in the Lords – and it is also likely to have the joint longest Committee Stage of any Bill this Session. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill also had 12 days at Committee Stage, though that was originally only supposed to take seven. It is possible that Committee stage on this Bill will also overrun and could therefore push proceedings beyond the 12 days currently planned.

At Committee Stage, the House examines the Bill clause-by-clause and decides whether each clause should “stand part” of the Bill. Peers also consider proposed amendments in the order in which they appear, or would appear, in the Bill. The first clauses in the Bill relate to anti-social behaviour, fly-tipping, and begging, so those are likely to be the first topics for debate. (House of Lords Library briefing)

Dinner-break: Debate on financial provision on divorce: At approximately 19:30, the House will pause its consideration of the Crime and Policing Bill for a one-hour “dinner-break business” slot. During this period, Peers will hold a Question for Short Debate (QSD) on reforming the law on financial provision on divorce, following the Law Commission’s December 2024 scoping report. A QSD provides an opportunity for a short debate on a single topic, with a Government Minister or Whip responding at the end. (House of Lord Library briefing)

Grand Committee: From 15:45, there will be debates on four draft Statutory Instruments:

• the draft Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Definition of Relevant Land) (Amendment) Order 2025;

• the draft National Health Service (Procurement, Slavery and Human Trafficking) Regulations 2025;

• the draft Trade Act 2021 (Power to Implement International Trade Agreements) (Extension to Expiry) Regulations 2025; and

• the draft Environmental Protection (Wet Wipes Containing Plastic) (England) Regulations 2025.

↖ Contents · Skip to Tuesday’s Lords ↘

Only one Select Committee is scheduled to meet today:

House of Lords

16:05: Finance Bill Sub-Committee of the Economic Affairs Committee – The draft Finance Bill 2025-26: Tax experts and lawyers will give evidence on draft provisions of this year’s Finance Bill. The Bill will give legal effect to most of the tax measures announced in this year’s Budget, and also carries forward some measures announced in last year’s Budget, including new limits on agricultural property relief from Inheritance Tax.

A full list of select committee hearings can be found on the What’s On section of the Parliament website.

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↖ Contents · Skip to Tuesday’s Select Committees ↘

Questions and statements: At 14:30, Justice Ministers will respond to MPs’ questions. Topics include reform of human rights law, offensive weapons, the use of the Welsh language in prisons, the probation service, violence against women and girls, avoidance of probationary supervision, legal aid and access to justice, court backlogs, and Imprisonment for Public Protection.

At 15:30, any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow.

Ten Minute Rule Motion: Liberal Democrat MP Calum Miller will seek to introduce the Russian Frozen Assets (Seizure and Aid to Ukraine) Bill under the Ten Minute Rule which allows MPs to give a ten-minute speech in favour of a Bill before seeking the House’s permission to introduce it. The Bill would make provision about the seizure of frozen assets connected to the Russian Federation and require the Secretary of State to publish recommendations about the use of such assets to fund military, reconstruction and humanitarian work in Ukraine. See our Hansard Society guide for more information about the parliamentary procedure for Ten Minute Rule Bills.

General debate – Remembrance and the contribution of the armed forces: This is a general debate, so it is not tied to a substantive motion or piece of legislation. Its purpose is simply to allow MPs to speak on the wider subject of the armed forces. The debate is due to run until no later than 22:00. (House of Commons Library resources)

Presentation of Public Petitions:

Conservative MP Mark Garnier will present a petition on planning applications in Stourport-on-Severn.

Labour MP Jonathan Brash will present a petition on council tax reform.

Adjournment: Labour MP Dan Carden will speak about blood transfusions during the Falklands War. A Minister will then give a response.

Westminster Hall

11:30: Support for dyslexic pupils at school (House of Commons Library briefing)

13:00: Sixth form provision in Bolsover constituency

16:30: Employment opportunities for autistic adults

18:00: Step-free access at rural railway stations (House of Commons Library briefing)

18:30: Impact of alcohol duty on the UK wine sector (House of Commons Library briefing)

Delegated Legislation Committees

18:00: draft Radio Equipment (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2025

18:00: draft Merchant Shipping (Marine Equipment) Regulations 2025

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Oral questions: At 14:30, Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on overseas musicians touring in the UK; the keeping of police force records; the environmental implications of airport expansion; and the continued operation of the British Council.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Report, day 4): Today is the final day of the Bill’s Report Stage. At this Stage, the whole House debates and decides on amendments to the Bill, with related amendments grouped together for debate. The remaining groups of amendments to be debated relate to: asylum seekers from ‘safe states’; good character requirements for citizenship; data protection in relation to illegal migration; age assessments; refusal of asylum claims from illegal entrants; third-country removal centres; the Refugee Convention; splitting up families; the rights of Chagossians; the provision of translators and interpreters; and asylum claims based on modern slavery or religious conversion.

Once Report Stage is concluded, the Bill will then need to complete Third Reading. By convention in the Lords, Third Reading does not take place until at least three clear sitting days after Report Stage has concluded. In accordance with that convention, the Bill’s Third Reading is provisionally scheduled for Monday 17 November, after which the Bill will return to the Commons for consideration of Lords amendments. (House of Lords Library briefing)

Debate on this Bill will be paused for “dinner-break business” to enable Peers to consider Commons amendments to another Bill:

Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill (Consideration of Commons Amendments and Reasons): As outlined in last week’s Bulletin, the Government suffered defeats on five groups of amendments during the Bill’s passage through the House of Lords. When the Bill returned to the Commons last week, MPs voted to reject one amendment outright, but proposed compromise alternative amendments for the other four:

• Initiation of investigations of fraud against public authorities: The Lords originally agreed an amendment to enable Cabinet Office Ministers to initiate proactive investigations or recovery actions into suspected fraud against a public authority, without requiring a prior request from that authority. The Commons has proposed alternative amendments, to allow Cabinet Office Ministers to initiate an investigation or take recovery action without a request from the relevant authority if the Minister considers that it is “in the public interest to do so”.

• Oversight of officials recovering money lost to fraud: The Lords originally agreed an amendment to provide greater ministerial and parliamentary oversight when authorised officers exercise ministerial powers to investigate and recover money lost to public sector fraud – such as by direct deductions from accounts, recovery notices, or deductions from earnings. The Commons has proposed alternative amendments to require the Government to publish guidance on how the Minister will exercise investigative powers in relation to public sector fraud and publish an annual report on the exercise of their investigative and recovery powers, and require investigators to keep a written record of any exercise of specified powers.

• Limits to benefit-eligibility verification powers: The Lords originally agreed an amendment to clarify that, when banks are required to scan their accounts to identify benefit recipients and test them against specific ‘eligibility indicators’, the presence of an indicator does not alone constitute reasonable grounds for suspicion. It also requires that any information flagged be reviewed by a suitably qualified person. The Commons has proposed alternative amendments to require the Secretary of State and authorised Department of Work and Pensions officers to have regard to all relevant information, including information other than eligibility indicators.

• Independent review of benefit-eligibility verification powers: The Lords originally agreed an amendment to expand the scope of the independent review of social security eligibility verification powers, to ensure that the costs of the powers are proportionate and any unintended adverse consequences are identified. The Commons rejected this Lords amendment outright.

• Use of force: The Lords originally agreed an amendment to prohibit authorised DWP officers from using force against individuals when exercising their entry, search and seizure powers. The Commons has proposed alternative amendments to limit the use of force only to cases where it is “necessary” in the exercise of certain investigative powers.

Where the Commons has disagreed with a Lords amendment or proposed an alternative amendment, the Lords will need to decide whether to insist on its original amendment, propose another alternative, or agree with the Commons position. Unless the Lords agrees with the Commons on all five issues, the Bill will return to the Commons for another round of ping-pong.

Report Stage proceedings on the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill will then resume.

Grand Committee

15:45: Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Committee, day 4): The House will continue its Committee Stage scrutiny of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. At Committee Stage, the House debates whether each clause should be included in the Bill, and considers potential amendments to its provisions.

This scrutiny is taking place in Grand Committee, which meets in a large committee room called the Moses Room rather than the main Chamber. In Grand Committee, all Peers may attend and speak, but there are no formal votes (divisions). Amendments can only be agreed by unanimous consent. Consequently, debates at this stage are typically probing in nature – designed to elicit the Government’s position or to explore issues in greater detail. Substantive changes to the Bill are then usually considered and voted upon at the Bill’s Report Stage.

The next clauses and amendments to be debated relate to enforcement of offences; impact assessment and post-legislative review requirements; non-cigarette tobacco products; the Bill’s application to Northern Ireland; and vaping product flavours and quantities.

↖ Contents · Skip to Wednesday’s Lords ↘

Highlights include:

House of Commons

14:00: Business and Trade Committee – Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle MP will give evidence on the work of his department.

14:00: Justice Committee – Independent Review of the Criminal Courts: The Chair of the Independent Review, Sir Brian Leveson, will give evidence.

14:30: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee – Defra Secretary Emma Reynolds MP will give evidence on the work of her department.

14:30: Home Affairs Committee – Home Office Permanent Secretary Dame Antonia Romeo and other senior officials will give evidence on the work of their department. Following the Home Secretary’s recent admission that the department is “not yet fit for purpose”, the Committee will particularly explore the officials’ assessment of the current state of the Home Office.

15:00: Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee – Secretary of State Steve Reed MP will make his first appearance at this Committee since his appointment. He will be accompanied by the department’s Permanent Secretary, Dame Sarah Healey, to give evidence on the work of his department particularly in relation to homelessness, planning reform and the Government’s target of 1.5 million new homes.

House of Lords

09:05: Financial Services Regulation Committee – Growth of private markets in the UK following reforms introduced after 2008: The bosses of Barclays and HSBC will give evidence.

17:30: International Agreements Committee – UK–India Free Trade Agreement: The Bar Council, Law Society, and other experts will give evidence.

A full list of select committee hearings can be found on the What’s On section of the Parliament website.

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Details of Wednesday’s business can be found below.

Questions and statements: At 11:30, Science, Innovation and Technology Ministers will respond to MPs’ questions. Topics include research and development at universities, gigabit coverage, mobile signal, online safety, life sciences, drug dealing on social media, UKRI funding, artificial intelligence, and anti-microbial resistance.

At 12:00, Sir Keir Starmer is set to face the Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch, at PMQs.

At 12:30, any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow.

Ten Minute Rule Motion: Labour MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter will seek to introduce the Road Safety (Schools) Bill under the Ten Minute Rule which allows MPs to give a ten-minute speech in favour of a Bill before seeking the House’s permission to introduce it. The Bill would make provision about road safety measures near schools.

Opposition Day (Conservative): On 20 days in each parliamentary Session, the usual precedence given to Government business is set aside, and opposition parties are able to choose the topic of debate. Seventeen of these days are allocated to the Official Opposition, the Conservatives, and the remaining three are given to the third party, the Liberal Democrats. Opposition parties are not obliged to give advance notice of the debate’s topic, so it may not be known until Wednesday’s Order Paper is published late on Tuesday night.

Adjournment: SNP MP Seamus Logan will give a speech on the Nolan Principles. A Minister will then give a response.

Westminster Hall

09:30: Typhoon fighter sovereign capability (House of Commons Library debate pack)

11:00: Government preparations for the phased switch-off of the Radio Teleswitch Service

14:30: SEND provision in Kent (House of Commons Library briefing)

16:00: The governance and accountability of public bodies

16:30: Progress on the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan (House of Commons Library briefing)

Delegated Legislation Committees

14:30: The draft Infrastructure Planning (Business or Commercial Projects) (Amendment) Regulations 2025. These regulations allow planning applications for new data centres to be categorised as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, and therefore to be considered by the Secretary of State (subject to the advice of the Planning Inspectorate) rather than by local authorities.

16:30: The draft Immigration Skills Charge (Amendment) Regulations 2025. These regulations increase the Immigration Skills Charge – the fee that UK employers must pay when sponsoring migrant workers on certain visa routes – by 32%, the rate of inflation since the Charge was last increased.

16:30: The draft Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 (Permitted Disclosures) Regulations 2025.

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Oral questions: At 15:00, Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on telemedical abortions; the Barnett Formula for needs-based funding in Wales; and the deregulation of cryptocurrencies in the United States. The topic of a fourth question will be decided by a ballot drawn at lunchtime on Monday 10 November.

Sentencing Bill (Second Reading): This Bill, which has already passed through the House of Commons, reforms the UK’s sentencing regime. A previous edition of the Bulletin outlined the main provisions of the Bill.

At Second Reading, the House will debate the general principles underlying the Bill. No amendments to the text can be made at this stage. The House of Lords rarely votes against Government Bills at Second Reading, and they therefore usually proceed without a division. Once the Bill has received its Second Reading, it will be committed to a Committee of the Whole House for detailed clause-by-clause scrutiny at the next stage. (House of Lords Library briefing)

↖ Contents · Skip to Thursday’s Lords ↘

Highlights include:

House of Commons

09:15: Transport Committee – Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander MP will give evidence on the work of her department.

09:30: Work and Pensions Committee – Employment support for disabled people: Campaigners, disability groups and representatives of business will give evidence.

10:00: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee – Propriety, ethics and the wider standards landscape: Former Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life Lord Evans of Weardale and former Commissioner for Public Appointments Sir Peter Riddell (who is also a former Chair of the Hansard Society) will give evidence.

14:15: Treasury Committee – Budget 2025: Economics, property and taxation experts will give evidence including Professor Tim Leunig, the international prize winning economist and former Special Adviser to Rishi Sunak at the Treasury and in Downing Street, and Kirstie Allsopp, the television presenter and property expert.

14:20: Women and Equalities Committee – Community cohesion: Journalist and broadcaster Peter Geoghegan, British Future director Sunder Katwala, and Misbah Malik of Hope Not Hate will give evidence.

14:30: Environmental Audit Committee – The Seventh Carbon Budget: Climate and environment experts will give evidence.

14:45: Procedure Committee – The sub judice resolution in the House of Commons: Three former Attorneys General will give evidence (Dominic Grieve, Sir Michael Ellis and Sir Jeremy Wright MP).

House of Lords

11:00: Public Services Committee – Medicines security: Pharmaceutical bosses and representatives of the pharmaceutical sector will give evidence.

Joint

14:15: Joint Committee on Human Rights – The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill and its potential impact on the human rights of disabled people: The Committee’s plan to hold this one-off evidence session has proved contentious among its own members. According to the Committee’s Minutes, three members (all MPs) voted against holding this meeting but were outvoted by six others (five peers and one MP). One of the MPs who voted against holding this evidence session, Tom Gordon, subsequently wrote to the Committee’s chair, arguing that the evidence session was too narrowly focused on disability rather than the full range of equality and human rights issues, risked duplicating scrutiny already undertaken by committees in both Houses, and had been agreed at the last minute rather than as part of a wider, structured programme of work.

A full list of select committee hearings can be found on the What’s On section of the Parliament website.

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Questions and statements: At 09:30, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Ministers will face questions from MPs. Topics include flood resilience, fly-tipping, access to nature, cages in farming, young people in farming, littering, water pollution and the water sector, agricultural and business property reliefs for Inheritance Tax, solar farms and food security, biodiversity, hunting trophies, and food waste.

At 10:10 MPs will put questions to the Solicitor General representing the Attorney General’s Office. Topics include the effectiveness of the Serious Fraud Office; prosecution rates for rural crime; joint work with the Crown Prosecution Service to support victims; the impact of beneficial-ownership registers in the Overseas Territories; prosecution rates for violence against women and girls; the prosecution of organised crime in North East Hertfordshire; the experience of victims in the criminal justice system; and the effectiveness of the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme.

At 10:30, any Urgent Questions will follow.

The Leader of the House of Commons, Sir Alan Campbell MP, will then present the weekly Business Statement, setting out the business in the House for the next couple of weeks and answering questions about anything that Members might want debated. Any other Ministerial Statements will follow.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Consideration of Lords amendments): This Bill to reform the planning system has now passed both the Commons and the Lords. However, the Government suffered seven defeats on amendments during its passage through the Lords, to which the Commons must now respond:

• National Policy Statements parliamentary procedure: An amendment to retain, for all National Policy Statements (NPSs) and any amendments to them, the requirement for the Government to respond to recommendations or resolutions from either House or their committees.

• Reservoirs and heritage sites: The Government tabled an amendment to allow third parties other than water companies to carry out Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) relating to water, such as reservoirs. Peers agreed an amendment to this provision to ensure that the consent processes for heritage sites apply in relation to the construction of reservoirs.

• Notification of homeowners affected by proposed reservoirs: An amendment requiring that where a dam or reservoir would demolish 20 or more homes, affected residents must be notified and allowed to make representations to the Government before the scheme enters the NSIP process.

• Accessibility of public charging points: An amendment to enable Ministers to make regulations to enable disabled people to more easily use public charging points.

• Smaller reservoirs: An amendment to encourage consideration of measures requiring the Government to assess how the regulatory regime affects the constriction of smaller reservoirs.

• Planning delegation: An amendment to require that the first regulations made by Ministers to establish a national scheme of delegation – determining which planning decisions are taken by council officers and which by planning committees – should be subject to the affirmative scrutiny procedure, so they must be debated and voted on in both Houses. In a blog post earlier this year, the Hansard Society criticised the proposal to provide only the negative procedure for these regulations, stating that “they are likely to be of significant public and political interest to MPs and Peers” but “no parliamentary debate or vote will be required”. If the Government accepts this change in the Commons, it would improve scrutiny of the Bill’s implementation.

• Environmental Delivery Plans: An amendment to limit Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs) to issues where strategic, landscape scale approaches will be effective. EDPs – to be drawn up by Natural England – will let developers avoid some site-by-site environmental requirements, including by paying a Nature Restoration Levy instead.

The Commons must decide, for each Lords amendment, whether to agree with the amendment, disagree with it outright, or propose an alternative. Unless the House of Commons agrees to all the Lord’s amendments, the Bill will be sent back to the Lords for consideration of the Commons’ position. The Government is likely to seek to reverse or amend all the Lords amendments.

Adjournment: Conservative MP Sir David Davis will give a speech on the legacy of the Troubles. A Minister will then give a response.

Westminster Hall

13:30: Modern day slavery in Pakistan (House of Commons Library briefing)

15:00: Protecting consumers from rogue builders (House of Commons Library briefing)

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Oral questions: At 11:00, Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on learning disabilities mortality review reports; the jobs market; and the status of Palestinian refugees. The topic of a fourth question will be decided by a ballot drawn at lunchtime on Tuesday 11 November.

General debate (economic and taxation policy): This debate on the impact of the Government’s economic and taxation policies on jobs, growth and prosperity will be led by the political strategist and Conservative Peer Lord (Matthew) Elliott of Mickle Fell.

Question for short debate: There will a one-hour Question for Short Debate on progress in the development of the proposed Hillsborough Law, with a ministerial reply at the end. The question will be asked by the Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Lord Alton of Liverpool. (House of Lords Library briefing)

General debate (biodiversity and the countryside): Former Conservative Peer and Cabinet Minister Lord (Chris) Grayling will lead this debate on the impact of the Government’s policies on biodiversity and the countryside.

Grand Committee

13:00: Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Committee, day 5): Peers will resume their clause-by-clause scrutiny of the Bill and consideration of amendments from the point that the Grand Committee reached at Tuesday’s sitting. The Committee Stage is expected to conclude at the sixth sitting, on Monday 17 November.

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Only one Select Committee is scheduled to meet today:

House of Commons

10:00: Public Accounts Committee – Faulty energy efficiency installations: The Permanent Secretary at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and senior officials from DESNZ and Ofgem will give evidence.

A full list of select committee hearings can be found on the What’s On section of the Parliament website.

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The House will not be sitting.

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The Lords will sit from 10:00.

Crown Estate (Wales) Bill (Third Reading): This Private Member’s Bill – introduced by Plaid Cymru’s Lord Wigley – would transfer responsibility for the Crown Estate in Wales to the Welsh Government. As the Bill was introduced into the House of Lords, it will be sent to the House of Commons to complete its stages there. However, without Government support, it is unlikely to make any further progress.

Third Reading debates in the House of Lords are typically very short, so this debate is unlikely to delay the start of the assisted dying bill debate for long.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Committee, day 1): The Bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales will begin its Committee Stage scrutiny. So far, the Government Whips have indicated that there will be four days of Committee Stage. In addition to today’s debate, further sessions are scheduled for Friday 21 November, Friday 5 December, and Friday 12 December. (House of Lords Library briefing)

At Committee Stage, the House must decide whether each clause and schedule should be included in the Bill, and whether any amendments should be made or new clauses and schedules added. To understand Committee Stage, it is important to understand its two key structural elements: (i) how amendments and clauses are decided, and (ii) how amendments and clauses are debated.

How does the House of Lords decide on amendments?

The House decides amendments in the order in which they would apply to a Bill. Only once it has decided on all the proposed amendments to a particular clause can the House then decide whether that clause should be included in the Bill.

This order of decision-making is reflected in the amendment papers published on the publications tab of the Bill’s page on the parliamentary website.

When new amendments are tabled each day, a fresh amendment paper is published the following day, containing all the amendments proposed up to that point. Two working days before a sitting is scheduled, those amendments are then ordered, numbered to reflect their position in that ordered list, and published as the “marshalled list”. The marshalled list for this Committee Stage sitting will be published on Wednesday 12 November, and further marshalled lists will be published for each subsequent sitting, to reflect any new amendments tabled.

Unlike in the Commons, there is no formal selection of amendments by the Speaker. If a Peer wishes to move an amendment, they can insist on doing so. House of Lords clerks will typically advise if something would likely be considered disorderly, but in principle every amendment on the amendment paper can be moved, spoken to and pushed to a vote if the Member who tabled it wishes to do so.

It is far less common, however, for amendments to be pressed to a division at Committee Stage than at Report Stage. This is mainly because an amendment that is defeated at Committee Stage cannot then be tabled again at Report Stage. As a result, many amendments at Committee Stage are ‘probing’ amendments, designed either to test the Government’s position or to measure prospective support for the amendment in the wider House in future. Nevertheless, it is neither unprecedented nor prohibited for a Peer to press their amendment to a vote at Committee Stage if they wish to – it is just less usual.

How does the House of Lords debate amendments?

As in the Commons, similar amendments are grouped together for debate, but in the Lords this grouping is drawn up by the Government Whips. Any Peer who has tabled an amendment can object to the grouping of their amendment and insist it be debated separately. In practice, this is a well-established delaying tactic in the Lords – particularly at Committee Stage – as insisting that amendments be debated individually or in smaller groups increases the time taken.

The order in which amendments are debated does not always reflect the order in which they are decided. For example, an amendment which applies very late in the Bill may be grouped for debate with a very similar amendment that applies much earlier in the Bill. The later amendment would therefore be debated alongside the earlier one, but would not be decided until the House reaches that point in the Bill. In some cases, several weeks can elapse between an amendment being discussed and the vote on it taking place.

The Government Whips do not publish their proposed grouping of amendments until the day of the debate itself. The proposed grouping will therefore be included as part of the Whips’ Daily List document for today, and it will give an indication of the topics that are likely to be covered at today’s sittings.

However, since amendments are arranged in the order in which they apply to the Bill, the first groups of amendments will relate to the early clauses, in particular the provisions setting out the eligibility criteria for an assisted death.

How long could Committee Stage take?

At the time of writing, Peers have tabled 526 amendments to the Bill. For a 51-page Bill this is an unusually large number of amendments. Only three Bills this Session have attracted more Lords amendments, and all three were much longer Bills – the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (725 amendments over 137 pages), the Planning and Infrastructure Bill (652 amendments over 180 pages), and the Employment Rights Bill (646 amendments over 299 pages). All three Bills have now completed their Committee Stages. Since amendments can still be tabled up to the final Committee sitting, it is entirely possible that the number of amendments tabled for the assisted dying bill will exceed some or all of them. Notably, each of the three bills also had significantly more than four days in Committee – 12, 8, and 11 days respectively.

Another comparison can be made by looking at the number of amendments per page and comparing it to other bills of similar length (20 pages or more). On that measure, the assisted dying bill is far ahead of any other legislation this Session – with more than 10.3 amendments per page. The next highest is the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, at 5.29 amendments per page.

As outlined in our briefing on Lords procedure, the 2014 Assisted Dying Bill began its Committee Stage with 183 amendments, and ultimately failed to make progress because the House did not have enough time to complete Committee Stage at the pace it was progressing. If progress this time is similarly slow, the Government may need to consider allocating additional time. However, it is unclear whether there is either the capacity, or indeed the wider appetite in the House, for more Friday sittings.

Our guide to the legislative process in the House of Lords explains in more detail the procedures and the risks that lie ahead for the Bill.

↖ Contents · Skip to Looking ahead ↘

Both Houses will resume at 14:30 on Monday 17 November 2025. Our next Bulletin will therefore be published on Sunday 16 November.

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