Questions and statements: At 14:30, the Home Secretary and her ministerial team will respond to MPs’ questions. Topics include crimes committed by asylum seekers, child exploitation, public order legislation and religious expression, hate crime legislation, changes to worker visas, the European Convention on Human Rights and immigration, police use of technology, shop theft, illegal working, antisocial behaviour, non-consensual filming of women, financial abuse, and knife crime.

At 15:30, any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow. Each Urgent Question lasts around 40 minutes on average, and Ministerial Statements last an average of around 50 minutes. Ministers are likely to give an update on the UK’s response to hostilities with Iran.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Consideration of Lords amendments): MPs will consider Lords amendments to the Government’s legislation to impose new restrictions on the supply of smoking and vaping products. (House of Lords Library briefing)

For each amendment made by the Lords, the Commons must decide whether to agree with the amendment, disagree with it outright, or put forward an alternative amendment.

The Government tabled dozens of its own amendments and also accepted several proposed by Conservative Peer Lord Moylan. His changes would require parliamentary approval of regulations specifying the method of customer age verification for tobacco and nicotine products.

Since no amendments were made against the Government’s wishes, they are unlikely to be opposed by the Commons. If MPs formally agree the Lords amendments today, the Bill will be sent to receive Royal Assent.

National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill (Consideration of Lords amendments): MPs will consider Lords amendments to the Government’s legislation to implement a £2,000 annual cap on the amount of employer pension contributions made through salary sacrifice that are exempt from National Insurance (NICs). The House will be asked to approve a programme motion before the debate on the Bill begins. This motion states that the Lord’s amendments can be debated for up to three hours. (House of Commons Library briefing)

Again, the Commons must decide for each Lords amendment whether to agree with the amendment, disagree with it outright, or put forward an alternative amendment.

The Government suffered defeats on five amendments during the Bill’s passage through the Lords, which the Government is now likely to seek to reverse or replace:

• lower earners: exempting basic rate taxpayers from the £2,000 cap;

• student loan repayments: preventing excess contributions counting as income for the purposes of student loan repayments;

• parliamentary scrutiny: requiring most regulations made using powers in the Bill to be approved by Parliament before they can be signed into law;

• increased cap: increasing the cap from £2,000 to £5,000; and

• small organisations: exempting small and medium-sized enterprises, charities and social enterprises from the Bill.

Only once both Houses agree on every issue will the Bill be sent for Royal Assent. Therefore, the Bill is likely to be sent back to the Lords after today’s debate.

Delegated Legislation: MPs will be asked to approve without debate two draft Statutory Instruments which were considered in Delegated Legislation Committees last week: the Further Education (Initial Teacher Training) Regulations 2026 and the Warm Home Discount (England and Wales) Regulations 2026.

Presentation of Public Petitions: Two petitions are set to be presented:

• by Green Party MP Dr Ellie Chowns, on River Wye pollution; and

• by Liberal Democrat MP Adam Dance, on the hyper-acute stroke unit at Yeovil District Hospital.

Adjournment: Labour MP Julia Buckley will give a speech on rail connections between London and rural towns. A Minister will then give a response.

Westminster Hall

16:30: MPs will debate e-petition 751839, which calls for the Government to cancel the clinical trial into puberty blockers. The petition has around 146,000 signatures. (House of Commons Library briefing / Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology POSTbrief)

18:00: MPs will debate e-petition 756036, which calls for all court and tribunal transcripts to be made available free of charge. The petition has around 201,000 signatures. (House of Commons Library briefing)

Delegated Legislation Committees

18:00: The draft Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) (Amendment) (Specified Period) Order 2026

18:00: The draft Sussex and Brighton Combined County Authority Regulations 2026

18:00: A motion to approve up to £570 million of funding to successful applicants to the Life Sciences Large Investment Portfolio

↖ Contents · Skip to Tuesday’s Commons ↘

Oral questions: At 14:30, Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on onshore wind farms; future UK financial assistance to Ukraine for reparation; improving access to migraine care; and the effect of companies holding annual general meetings solely online.

Pension Schemes Bill (Report, day 3 of 3): Today is the final day of Report Stage of the Government’s Bill to reform the pensions regime. (House of Lords Library briefing)

At Report Stage, the whole House decides whether any amendments should be made, or new clauses added, to the Bill. Similar amendments and new clauses will be grouped together for debate, to prevent repetition and create a more focused debate. It is at Report Stage that the Government is most frequently defeated on amendments.

Today’s debate is likely to focus on amendments to: require the Government to conduct various reviews; transfer the Atomic Weapons Establishment pension scheme to a new public sector pension scheme; require the Government to produce guidance about certain regulations and the meaning of certain terms; require annual reporting on pension investments in thermal coal; require the Government to review the long-term affordability and fairness of public service pension schemes; require regular data accuracy checks on the contributions of scheme members; and provide free and impartial pension advice to everyone over 40.

Grand Committee

From 15:45, Peers will debate five draft Statutory Instruments:

• Warm Home Discount (England and Wales) Regulations 2026;

• Contracts for Difference (Sustainable Industry Rewards and Contract Budget Notice Amendments) Regulations 2026;

• Train Driving Licences and Certificates (Amendment) Regulations 2026;

• Sussex and Brighton Combined County Authority Regulations 2026; and

• Non-Domestic Rating (Rates Retention and Levy and Safety Net: Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2026.

↖ Contents · Skip to Tuesday’s Lords ↘

Highlights include:

House of Commons

14:30: Liaison Committee – The Prime Minister will appear before the Liaison Committee to answer questions from its members, who are the chairs of other House of Commons Select Committees. The Liaison Committee itself is chaired Dame Meg Hillier MP, who also chairs the Treasury Select Committee. The Committee has identified the international situation and defence as the central focus of this session. It expects questions to span a wide range of issues, including defence, the Middle East, the UK’s economic security, the economic impact of the conflict in Iran, the situation in Palestine, and the challenge of defending democracy. With 31 members in total, it is not practical for every Committee member to question the Prime Minister. Instead, 10 Select Committee chairs have been chosen to lead the questioning.

15:30: Public Accounts Committee – Ministry of Defence Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25: The MoD’s Permanent Secretary and other senior defence officials will give evidence. The same group appeared before the Defence Committee last week. In last week’s Bulletin, we drew attention to issues arising from the MoD’s Annual Report and Accounts; these are likely to feature prominently in today’s evidence session as well.

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 11:30, Energy Security and Net Zero Ministers will respond to MPs’ questions. Topics include global taxes on oil and gas companies, grid capacity, energy bills, fusion power, methane harvested from landfill, the planning process for electric lines, the impact of the Middle East conflict, private investment in clean energy, support for homes that use heating oil, and the Warm Homes Plan.

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

Ten Minute Rule Motion: Labour MP Kirsteen Sullivan will seek to introduce a Personal Protective Equipment (Inclusive Standards) 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 require that personal protective equipment procured and provided by public sector and associated bodies must comply with certain inclusivity standards. See our Hansard Society guide for more information about the parliamentary procedure for Ten Minute Rule Bills.

Opposition Day (Conservatives): This is the final Opposition Day of this Session – the last of the 20 allotted days when Government business does not have priority and precedence is instead given to motions tabled by opposition parties. As this is a Conservative Opposition Day, the subject will be chosen by the Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch. Details of the motion(s) to be debated may not be made known until Tuesday’s Order Paper is published.

Adjournment: Liberal Democrat MP Caroline Voaden will give a speech on Government support for coastal communities in Start Bay. A Minister will then give a response.

Westminster Hall

09:30: Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (House of Commons Library briefing)

11:00: Water supply and housing targets in West Kent

14:30: Access to endometriosis services (House of Commons Library briefing)

16:00: Identification and prosecution of reproductive coercion

16:30: Impact of planning on women’s safety in rural areas

Public Bill Committee

09:25 and 14:00: Representation of the People Bill (Committee, day 2): Having taken oral evidence from experts last week (transcript here), the Public Bill Committee will begin its clause-by-clause scrutiny and consideration of amendments at today’s sitting. The Committee will decide on the Bill’s clauses and amendments in the order in which they appear, or would appear, in the Bill. Today’s debate is therefore likely to focus on the earliest clauses in the Bill, which relate to the extension of the right to vote to 16- and 17-year olds. (House of Commons Library briefing)

↖ Contents · Skip to Wednesday’s Commons ↘

Oral questions: At 14:30, Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on the readiness of the courts for the Renters’ Rights Bill; codes of practice on parking; accessible public transport; and reduction in Government spending following Office for National Statistics data on public sector borrowing and 10-year gilt yields increases.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Report, day 1 of 3): Today is the first day of Report Stage of the Government’s Bill to reform the structure of local government. (House of Lords Library briefing)

At Report Stage, the whole House decides whether any amendments should be made, or new clauses added, to the Bill. Similar amendments and new clauses will be grouped together for debate, to prevent repetition and create a more focused debate. It is at Report Stage that the Government is most frequently defeated on amendments.

The House will decide the amendments in the order in which they apply to the Bill, so the first amendments to be debated will relate to the Bill’s early clauses, which concern the establishment of a new local government structure known as Strategic Authorities.

↖ Contents · Skip to Wednesday’s Lords ↘

Highlights include:

House of Commons

09:30: Science, Innovation and Technology Committee – Follow-up on social media, misinformation and harmful algorithms inquiry: Representatives from Google, Meta, Tik Tok and X (formerly known as Twitter) will be questioned about the progress being made in respect of the recommendations the Committee made in its report last year. The Committee has indicated that question topics may include the Government’s consultation on social media age restrictions, the deployment of AI features, and the failure to tackle misinformation following the Southport unrest in 2024.

09:45: Treasury Committee – The CEO, Chair, and Deputy CEO of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will give evidence on the organisation’s work.

10:00: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee – Preventing waste and enabling a circular economy, and land use and nature: Nature Minister Mary Creagh MP will give evidence.

10:00: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee – The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) and the Chief Executive of the Office of the PHSO will give evidence on the work of the Ombudsman.

10:00: Education Committee and Work and Pensions Committee – Delivering the Child Poverty Strategy: The two Committees will hold a joint session, taking evidence from Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza and experts in child poverty.

10:30: Defence Committee – The impact of the delay to the Defence Investment Plan on industry: Representatives of the defence industry and trade unions will give evidence.

14:30: International Development Committee – Future of UK aid and development assistance: Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper MP and International Development Minister Baroness Chapman of Darlington will give evidence.

14:30: Business and Trade Committee – Royal Mail: There will be three panels of witnesses. The session will begin with representatives from the trade unions, followed by the Chief Executive and UK Operations Director at Royal Mail, and will conclude with representatives from Ofcom.

House of Lords

11:30: European Affairs Committee – Dynamic alignment: Professor Catherine Barnard, Professor of European Law at the University of Cambridge and Senior Fellow at UK in a Changing Europe, will give evidence alongside Professor David Collins, Professor of International Economic Law at City St George’s, University of London.

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

↖ Contents · Skip to Wednesday’s Select Committees ↘

Details of Wednesday’s business can be found below.

Questions and statements: At 11:30, Northern Ireland Office Ministers will respond to MPs’ questions. Topics include the Troubles legislation, the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, police training, the Defence Industrial Strategy, the EU–Mercosur trade agreement, the film industry, and economic growth.

At 12:00, Sir Keir Starmer is set to face the Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch, at Prime Minister’s Questions.

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

Presentation of Bills: Liberal Democrat MP Daisy Cooper will introduce two Presentation Bills:

• Amenity Land (Purchase by Local Authorities) Bill: to make provision for the compulsory purchase of amenity land by local authorities for a nominal sum in certain circumstances; and

• General Medical Council (Fitness to Practise) Rules (Amendment) Bill: to provide that an allegation concerning a medical practitioner’s fitness to practise may be considered by the General Medical Council irrespective of when the most recent events giving rise to the allegation occurred.

For more information, see the Hansard Society’s guide to Presentation Bills.

Victims and Courts Bill (Consideration of Lords amendments): As outlined in an earlier edition of the Bulletin, the Government suffered defeats on five issues during the Bill’s initial passage through the House of Lords. The Bill is now returning to the House of Commons, so that MPs can consider their response to the Lords amendments. (House of Commons Library briefing)

For each Lords amendment, the Commons will need to decide whether to disagree outright with the amendment, agree with the amendment, or propose an alternative. Only once both Houses agree the same text will the Bill be sent for Royal Assent. Otherwise, the Bill will return to the Lords, where Peers will consider the Commons’ response.

Presentation of Public Petition: Liberal Democrat MP Lee Dillon will present a public petition, on road safety of horses and riders.

Adjournment: Labour MP Rebecca Long Bailey will give a speech on nuclear test veterans. A Minister will then give a response.

Westminster Hall

09:30: Government support for voluntary groups and community centres (House of Commons Library briefing)

11:00: NHS continuing healthcare (House of Commons Library briefing)

14:30: The proposed visitor levy in England (House of Commons Library briefing)

16:00: Waste crime in Knowsley (House of Commons Library briefing)

16:30: Impact of public baths and lidos on local communities

Public Bill Committee

09:25 and 14:00: Courts and Tribunals Bill (Committee, day 1): The Public Bill Committee appointed to consider this Bill will meet today to hear oral evidence. The witness list will have been agreed in advance between the Government and Opposition Whips. (House of Commons Library)

↖ Contents · Skip to Thursday’s Commons ↘

Oral questions: At 15:00, Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on the Cranston Inquiry Report into small boat deaths; the Media Freedom Coalition; and the promotion of equality. The topic of a fourth question will be decided by a ballot drawn at lunchtime on Monday 23 March.

Crime and Policing Bill (Third Reading): The House of Lords is expected to conclude proceedings on this Government Bill to reform the law relating to anti-social behaviour, crime, policing, public order, and national security. Third Reading debates in the House of Lords are typically very short. (House of Lords Library briefing)

During the Bill’s Report Stage, Peers supported a significant number of amendments against the Government’s wishes. The Government is expected to try and reverse or replace these changes when the Bill returns to the Commons:

• fixed penalty notices for anti-social behaviour: prohibiting any accredited or authorised person working on behalf of a local authority from profiting financially from the issuing of fixed penalty notices for breaches of public spaces protection orders or community protection orders;

• fly-tipping: requiring Government guidance on fly-tipping to make the person who is responsible for the fly-tipping, rather than the landowner or community, liable for clean-up costs;

• offensive weapons: increasing from four to 10 years the maximum sentence for possession of an offensive weapon with intent to use unlawful violence;

• non-consensual intimate images: requiring courts to order the destruction of any content involved in an offence of sharing or threatening to share an intimate image, including by ordering the disclosure of passwords;

• hashing: requiring the Government to produce regulations to provide for the generation and sharing of hashes of intimate images involved in relevant offences, for the purpose of preventing re-uploads;

• purported intimate image software: creating a new criminal offence of possessing software which can produce purported intimate images of another individual;

• restrictions on pornography: extending the proposed ban on pornography that depicts incest, to include step-parents and step-siblings;

• age verification for pornography websites: requiring pornography websites to verify the age and consent of every person featured on their site, and to enable withdrawal of consent at any time;

• indecent images of children: extending the existing offence of making an indecent photograph of a child to cases where a photograph includes an adult who “appears to be or is implied to be” a child;

• extreme protest groups: allowing the Government to designate groups as Extreme Criminal Protest Groups, separate from the proscription of terror organisations, with certain offences arising in relation to those groups;

• closure notices and orders: extending the period over which police and magistrates’ courts may make closure notices and closure orders – prohibiting access to certain premises to prevent anti-social behaviour – from 48 hours to 7 days for closure notices and from 3 months to 12 months for closure orders;

• non-crime hate incidents: ending the investigation and recording of non-crime hate incidents;

• investigation of acquitted officers: preventing the Independent Office for Police Conduct from investigating an officer where the officer has already been investigated and acquitted in court for the relevant conduct;

• youth radicalisation: requiring courts to be informed of whether alternative interventions have been considered before they make a youth diversion order – a new type of order designed to divert young people at risk of involvement in terrorism;

• glorification of terrorism: removing the “emulation requirement” as a condition of the offence of glorifying terrorism, which requires that the action being glorified is being presented as conduct that ought to be emulated;

• Iran-related terrorism: requiring the Government to review whether any organisations related to the Iranian government should be proscribed as terrorist organisations, with a requirement to publish the outcome of that review; and

• AI and online safety: creating two new offences of creating or supplying an AI chatbot that creates content that would result in terrorist offences or threats to national security, and of creating or supplying a chatbot that produces illegal content or content that is harmful to children, as defined under the Online Safety Act 2023.

On a free vote Peers also agreed an amendment to pardon and expunge the convictions of women who have previously been convicted of an abortion offence.

The Government also successfully proposed an amendment of its own, granting a broad delegated power to Ministers to amend the Online Safety Act by regulations in relation to matters concerning artificial intelligence. The Hansard Society raised concerns about this power in a recent briefing. Peers added the power to the Bill even as the House simultaneously inserted more detailed provisions on AI and online safety, outlined above, into the Bill against the Government’s wishes.

Having been amended, the Bill will need to return to the House of Commons so that MPs can consider their response. For each Lords amendment, the Commons can either agree with the amendment, reject it outright, or propose an alternative of its own. Only once both Houses can reach agreement on the text of the Bill can it be sent for Royal Assent.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Consideration of Commons amendments and reasons): As outlined in an earlier edition of the Bulletin, the Government suffered defeats on 13 separate issues during the Bill’s initial passage through the House of Lords.

When the Bill returned to the House of Commons, MPs voted to reject 11 of the Lords amendments outright. However, in response to two Lords amendments – one proposing a ban on social media for under-16s and another seeking to prohibit under-16s from using Virtual Private Networks – the Government put forward alternative amendments in an effort to reach a compromise. These proposals would confer a broad power on Ministers to make regulations requiring providers of “specified internet services” to block access for children under a “specified age”. In practice, this would enable the Government to introduce a social media ban or restrict VPN use for under-16s at a later date through regulations.

In a briefing published earlier this month, the Hansard Society criticised the power on the grounds that it was exceptionally broad and goes beyond what the House of Lords had originally proposed. In particular, the power fails to specify what services would be restricted, the age threshold below which the restrictions would apply, the form that the restrictions would take, and how those restrictions would be enforced.

The Government contends that it cannot include more detailed provisions in the amendment because the policy has not yet been settled, pending the conclusion of a consultation on children’s access to the online world. As we point out in the briefing paper, legislating before policy has been agreed is contrary to good legislative practice.

Moreover, the stage at which this power is being introduced significantly constrains the level of parliamentary scrutiny it will receive, particularly in the House of Commons. Earlier stages of a Bill allow for detailed clause-by-clause examination, evidence-taking, and amendment opportunities. But these scrutiny mechanisms are absent when considering Lords amendments, which is the stage at which this power has been added.

In response to the Commons’ alternative amendments, the Lords must decide whether to insist on their original proposals, accept the Commons’ alternatives, or put forward a further alternative of their own. Similarly, for each Lords amendment that the Commons has rejected outright, the Lords must choose whether to insist on their original text, accept its removal, or propose a revised alternative.

Only if the Lords accepts the Commons’ position on all of the amendments will the Bill be sent for Royal Assent. Otherwise, the Bill will return to the Commons, where MPs will once again consider the Lords’ position.

National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill (Consideration of Commons amendments and reasons): The House of Commons is due to consider Lords amendments to this Bill on Monday. If MPs disagree with any of the Lords amendments, or propose alternatives, the Bill will need to return to the House of Lords.

As the Government has tabled motions to reject all of the Lords amendments, all five issues identified in Monday’s Commons business section above are likely to remain in dispute. For each Lords amendment rejected by the Commons, the Lords may choose to insist on its original position, accept the Commons’ view, or suggest a revised alternative.

The Bill can proceed to Royal Assent only once both Houses reach agreement on every issue. If agreement is not reached, the Bill will return to the Commons for further consideration.

Grand Committee

16:15: Peers will debate a report by the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee, Northern Ireland after Brexit: Strengthening Northern Ireland’s voice in the context of the Windsor Framework. The Government has published a response to the Committee’s report. (House of Lords Library briefing)

↖ Contents · Skip to Thursday’s Lords ↘

Highlights include:

House of Commons

09:30: Northern Ireland Affairs Committee – Policing and security in Northern Ireland: The Chief Constable and Assistant Chief Constable at the Police Service of Northern Ireland will give evidence.

10:00: Justice Committee – Pre-appointment hearing for the chair of the Legal Services Board: The Committee will question the Government’s preferred candidate, Monisha Shah.

15:00: Energy Security and Net Zero Committee – Energy resilience: There will be three panels of witnesses, concluding with the Minister for Energy, Michael Shanks MP, who will appear alongside representative from Ofgem and the National Energy System Operator (NESO). The earlier panels will hear evidence from representatives of energy companies, the Petrol Retailers Association, and research bodies.

House of Lords

10:00: Environment and Climate Change Committee – Waste crime: The Chief Executive and the Director for Environmental Markets and Enforcement at the Environment Agency will give evidence.

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

↖ Contents · Skip to Thursday’s Select Committees ↘

Questions and statements: At 09:30, Transport Ministers will face questions from MPs. Topics include nationalisation of the railways, train station accessibility, driving test waiting times, road safety, support for motorists, local bus services, environmental mitigation in road projects, funding for bus services, aviation and satellite navigation, and transport connectivity.

Any Urgent Questions will follow.

The Leader of the House of Commons, Sir Alan Campbell MP, will 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 Ministerial Statements will follow.

Select Committee statement: Jenny Riddell-Carpenter MP, member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, will make a statement on the Committee’s new report, Erosion of trust: the impact of coastal erosion on communities. Select Committees can ask the Backbench Business Committee for time to make statements on the launch of inquiries or the publication of a report. These statements are typically scheduled in the Chamber during backbench business time on Thursdays. A statement consists of a 10-minute speech from a member of the Select Committee, during which interventions are not permitted, followed by 10 minutes of questions from MPs, to which the Select Committee member responds.

Backbench debate on transport accessibility for disabled people: The House will debate a motion inviting MPs to note the Transport Committee’s report on disabled people’s access to transport and to endorse its call for an urgent review of the legislative framework and enforcement regime. The debate was scheduled by the Backbench Business Committee following an application from Labour MP Ruth Cadbury who chairs the Transport Committee. The motion stands in her name, alongside Conservative MP Rebecca Smith and Liberal Democrat MP Steff Aquarone, both members of the Committee.

In her application, Cadbury said the debate would provide “an opportunity to press the Department on areas where we felt that [the Government’s] response to our report was not adequate”. Other Committee members supporting the application highlighted the “strong interest” among MPs, driven by personal experiences as well as constituency campaigns and casework. (House of Commons Library briefing)

Backbench debate on support for Gurkha veterans: The topic of this debate was chosen by the Backbench Business Committee following an application from Liberal Democrat MP Cameron Thomas. In his application, Thomas argued that the debate would give the House an opportunity “to highlight the injustices faced by the Gurkha veterans and to recognise their service in line with that of their British brothers in arms”.

Adjournment: Conservative MP Sir David Davis will give a speech on the conduct of Cheshire Police in the case of Lucy Letby. A Minister will then give a response.

Westminster Hall

13:30: Outcomes for patients with Ehlers–Danlos syndrome and craniocervical instability (House of Commons Library briefing)

15:00: Potential merits of mandatory body armour for prison officers (House of Commons Library briefing)

Public Bill Committee

11:30 and 14:00: Representation of the People Bill (Committee, day 3): The Public Bill Committee appointed to scrutinise the Bill will continue its scrutiny of clauses and proposed amendments, resuming at the point reached by the Committee at Tuesday’s sitting. (House of Commons Library briefing)

↖ Contents · Skip to Friday’s Commons ↘

Oral questions: At 11:00, Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on the AI growth lab; antisemitism in international human rights bodies; and Lloyds Bank’s investigation of fraud at HBOS. The topic of a fourth question will be decided by a ballot drawn at lunchtime on Tuesday 24 March.

Pension Schemes Bill (Third Reading): The House of Lords is expected to conclude proceedings on this Government Bill to reform the regulatory framework for pension schemes. Third Reading debates in the House of Lords are typically very short. (House of Lords Library briefing)

During the Bill’s Report Stage, Peers defeated the Government on some amendments. Ministers are expected to try and reverse or replace these changes when the Bill returns to the Commons:

• Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) mandation: preventing the power to make regulations about the LGPS from being used to tell local government schemes to invest in particular assets, asset classes or locations of investment;

• LGPS valuations: requiring LGPS valuations to be benchmarked against two measures – insurer pricing and gilt-based discount rates;

• LGPS transparency: making interim reviews of contributions by employers more accessible and transparent;

• dormant pension schemes: amending the definition of a “dormant” pension pot as one which is left alone for three years, rather than one year;

• mandation: removing the so-called “mandation” power, which would allow the Government to mandate asset allocations for workplace pension schemes;

• scale requirement exemption: create an exemption from the “scale requirement” that certain pension schemes consolidate to exceed an asset threshold, where the regulator recognises that consolidation would not benefit members;

• scale requirement regulations: require regulations implementing the “scale requirement” to have regard to innovation and competition; and

• regulations on non-scale pension schemes: require regulations implementing restrictions on new non-scale default arrangements to have regard to innovation and competition.

At the time of writing, Report Stage is still ongoing, with a final sitting scheduled for Monday 23 March, where further amendments may be agreed.

As a result of these amendments, the Bill must return to the House of Commons for MPs to consider the changes made by the Lords. For each amendment, the Commons may agree to it, reject it outright, or propose an alternative. Only once both Houses agree the same version of the Bill can it be sent for Royal Assent.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Report, day 2 of 3): The House will resume consideration of the remaining groups of amendments, picking up from where proceedings concluded on Monday. (House of Lords Library briefing)

At Report Stage, the whole House decides whether any amendments should be made or new clauses added to the Bill. Similar amendments and new clauses will be grouped together for debate, to prevent repetition and create a focused debate. It is at Report Stage that the Government is most frequently defeated on amendments.

Grand Committee

From 13:00, Peers will consider four Questions for Short Debate (QSDs), which are general debates that come in the form of a question to a Minister, each time-limited to one hour:

• the implications of the final report of the Curriculum and Assessment Review for education in England (House of Lords Library briefing);

• the use of reasonable adjustments by, and the safety of, people living with learning disabilities when accessing health and social care;

• discussions with the Government of Pakistan regarding the rights and welfare of former Prime Minister Imran Khan during his imprisonment, including access to medical care and family visits (House of Lords Library briefing); and

• the UK’s civil preparedness for war (House of Lords Library briefing).

QSDs are drawn from a ballot every five sitting weeks. The first four entries drawn from the ballot are debated in Grand Committee on a Thursday. The other entries drawn in the ballot appear on a supplementary “reserve list” in the order they were drawn. Questions on the reserve list can be taken in the Chamber as short debates between other items of business, either in the lunch break, dinner break, or as the last business of the day. Today’s QSDs were the first four entries drawn in the ballot on Wednesday 11 March.

↖ Contents · Skip to Friday’s Lords ↘

Highlights include:

House of Commons

10:00: Public Accounts Committee – Civil service pensions: The CEO and the Managing Director of Capita Public Services will give evidence.

House of Lords

10:30: National Resilience Committee – National resilience: Lord Harris of Haringey, Chair of the National Preparedness Commission, and Fiona Hill CBE, founder of the Future Resilience Forum and former Joint Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Theresa May, will give evidence. They will be followed by Dr Fiona Hill CMG, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Stephen Arundell, Founder of the Emergency Planning Society.

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

↖ Contents · Skip to Looking ahead ↘

The House will not be sitting.

↖ Contents · Skip to Looking ahead ↘

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Committee, day 13): From 10:00, the House will meet to continue its consideration of the Bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales. At Committee Stage, the House must decide whether each clause and schedule should remain in the Bill, and whether any amendments should be made or new clauses and schedules added. (House of Lords Library briefing)

Amendments can be grouped and debated together to keep the discussion focussed and coherent and to avoid unnecessary repetition. The Government Whips have organised the amendments into 80 groups, of which just 37 have been debated so far. The slow pace of progress has given rise to the suggestion that the Parliament Act might be deployed in the next Session to bring the Bill into law despite the opposition or indecision of the House of Lords. A recent episode of our Parliament Matters podcast includes a detailed discussion of how the Parliament Act works and how it might be utilised for this Private Member’s Bill.

A new marshalled list (a numbered list which sets out all the amendments to reflect their position in relation to where they apply to the Bill) will be published before today’s sitting starts (under the Amendment Paper section of the Publications tab on the Bill page on the parliamentary website). An updated list of the groups of amendments may also be published, and the sponsoring Peer, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, will indicate how many of these groups he hopes will be debated today.

↖ Contents · Skip to Looking ahead ↘

Parliament will adjourn for a fortnight for the Easter Recess. The House of Commons will rise on Thursday 26 March, followed by the House of Lords on Friday 27 March. Both Houses are scheduled to return at 14:30 on Monday 13 April 2026. Our next Bulletin will therefore be published on Sunday 12 April.

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