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 (amended or not) should be included in (“stand part” of) 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 the first Committee Stage sitting will be published on Wednesday 12 November, and further marshalled lists published before each subsequent sitting, to reflect any newly tabled amendments.

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. The 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 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.

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 may object to its grouping 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 the day of the debate, and it will give an indication of the topics that are likely to be covered at the days sitting.

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.

At the time of writing, Peers have tabled 737 amendments to the Bill. For a 51-page Bill this is an unusually large number of amendments. Indeed, it is the largest number of amendments at Committee Stage in the Lords for any Bill this Session. Only three Bills have attracted similar numbers of 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). Moreover, all three of those Bills have now completed their Committee Stages. Since amendments can still be tabled up to the final Committee sitting, it is possible that the number of amendments tabled for the assisted dying bill will even more significantly exceed those bills. 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 14.5 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.

It is possible that Members opposed to the Bill will resort to procedural tactics to delay progress – a charge that is frequently made by Peers during Committee Stages on Government Bills. The most common ways of doing so are:

• tabling large numbers of amendments, including after Committee Stage has started;

• objecting to groupings and insisting that amendments be debated individually or in smaller groups;

• making long speeches. or speaking more than once on the same issue; and

• encouraging a high number of speakers on each group of amendments.

In practice, though, it can be hard to distinguish a clear line between deliberate delaying tactics and legitimate, detailed scrutiny.

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.