The assisted dying bill has attracted an extraordinary number of amendments in the House of Lords, prompting questions about whether the volume is unprecedented. This blog examines how its amendment count compares with other bills in the current Session, and what the historical data shows about previous amendment-heavy legislation.
Matthew England
Researcher, Hansard Society
Matt joined the Hansard Society in 2023 to focus on the Society’s ongoing research into delegated powers and the system of scrutiny for delegated legislation. He also maintains the Society’s legislative monitoring service, the Statutory Instrument Tracker®. He graduated with a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Oxford in 2020 and an MSc in Political Theory from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2021. Before joining the Hansard Society, Matt worked as a researcher for a Member of Parliament focusing primarily on legislative research.
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When the assisted dying bill (properly known as the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill) began its first day of Committee Stage in the House of Lords on Friday 14 November, Peers had already tabled 970 amendments. In the six days since that sitting the number of amendments has risen to 1,071 amendments.
In the current parliamentary session, that is far more amendments at this stage of the legislative process than any other bill.
Table 1 below shows the ten bills with the largest number of amendments tabled at Committee Stage so far this Session.
Table 1: The ten bills with the most amendments tabled at Committee Stage in the House of Lords in the 2024-2026 parliamentary Session
| Bill | Number of amendments at Committee Stage to date | Volume of pages on introduction to the Lords | Average number of amendments per page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill* | 1071 | 51 | 21.00 |
| Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill | 725 | 137 | 5.29 |
| Crime and Policing Bill* | 672 | 429 | 1.57 |
| Planning and Infrastructure Bill | 652 | 180 | 3.62 |
| Employment Rights Bill | 646 | 299 | 2.16 |
| Football Governance Bill | 400 | 125 | 3.20 |
| Renters' Rights Bill | 339 | 238 | 1.42 |
| Data (Use and Access) Bill | 258 | 251 | 1.03 |
| Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill | 249 | 91 | 2.74 |
| Mental Health Bill | 206 | 90 | 2.29 |
As the Table also shows, the assisted dying bill is by far the shortest of the top ten bills. That makes its amendment count even more striking: it has four times the average number of amendments per page of the next highest bill.
With the exception of the Crime and Policing Bill and the assisted dying bill, the other eight bills have now completed Committee Stage. Because amendments can be tabled up to the final sitting, the total number of amendments tabled for these two outstanding bills could still rise, and in the case of the assisted dying bill could rise substantially.
The other bills this Session also saw a large number of amendments submitted after their first Committee sitting. For example, the Employment Rights Bill received nearly 300 additional amendments (37.8% of the total number of amendments) after its opening sitting.
To compare these bills on a like-for-like basis, it is helpful to examine how many amendments were tabled before each bill’s first sitting. As Table 2 shows, on this basis, the assisted dying bill’s lead in the number of amendments tabled by the first sitting becomes even clearer.
Table 2: Amendments tabled before the first House of Lords Committee sitting versus Committee Stage totals for the ten most-amended bills of the 2024-2026 Session to date
| Bill | Number of amendments tabled by first Committee Stage sitting | Number of amendments tabled by end of Committee Stage | Percentage increase in number of amendments tabled between first and last Committee Stage sittings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill | 970 | Committee stage not yet complete | To be confirmed |
| Crime and Policing Bill | 581 | Committee stage not yet complete | To be confirmed |
| Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill | 526 | 725 | 37.8% |
| Football Governance Bill | 365 | 400 | 9.6% |
| Employment Rights Bill | 353 | 646 | 83.0% |
| Planning and Infrastructure Bill | 308 | 652 | 111.7% |
| Renters' Rights Bill | 304 | 339 | 11.5% |
| Data (Use and Access) Bill | 229 | 258 | 12.7% |
| Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill | 214 | 249 | 16.4% |
| Mental Health Bill | 165 | 206 | 24.9% |
Looking back through past Sessions, it becomes more difficult to find a precedent because of problems accessing comparative data. Older legislative records are often inaccessible and where it exists the data is inconsistent. The House of Lords publishes Public Bill Statistics for each Session but reports only the total number of amendments tabled across Committee, Report and Third Reading. It does not break down the data by stage. In practice, it is therefore difficult (and too resource intensive) to look back at bills beyond the last twenty years with any certainty about the accuracy of the data.
Nevertheless, as set out in Table 3 below, the statistics that are readily available show that since 2005, only seven bills have had more amendments across all three stages than the assisted dying bill had already accumulated (970 amendments) by its first Committee Stage sitting.
Table 3: Bills since 2005 with higher amendment totals across all Lords stages than the assisted dying bill at its first Committee Stages sitting
| Bill | Session | Number of amendments tabled across Committee, Report and Third Reading Stages in the House of Lords |
|---|---|---|
| Companies Bill | 2005-2006 | 1,926 |
| Localism Bill | 2010-2012 | 1,589 |
| Health and Social Care Bill | 2010-2012 | 1,516 |
| Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill | 2022-2023 | 1,249 |
| Marine and Coastal Access Bill | 2008-2009 | 1,157 |
| Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill | 2010-2012 | 1,149 |
| Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill | 2006-2007 | 1,083 |
Of these seven bills, the most recent is the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill which was presented to Parliament in the 2022-2023 Session. The relevant bill page on the parliamentary website reveals that only 735 of the amendments to this Bill were tabled at Committee Stage – far fewer than for the assisted dying bill – suggesting that the current total for the latter is therefore unprecedented for at least 13 years since the 2010-2012 Session. However, for the other six bills in the list, all of them pre-dating the end of the 2010-2012 Session, comparative data is not available on the parliamentary website.
An alternative approach is to look at the number of amendments on the first marshalled list produced for each bill’s Report Stage, which offers a minimum count of amendments considered at that Stage. Subtracting that from the total across all three stages yields a theoretical maximum possible number of amendments that could have been considered at Committee Stage.
Using this method, it is clear that three of the six other bills saw fewer amendments tabled at Committee Stage than the assisted dying bill.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill: 310 amendments appear on the first marshalled list at Report Stage which means no more than 839 amendments could have been tabled at Committee;
Marine and Coastal Access Bill: 129 amendments appear on the first marshalled list at Report Stage which means no more than 1,028 amendments could have been tabled at Committee; and
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill: 257 amendments appear on the first marshalled list at Report Stage which means no more than 826 amendments could have been tabled at Committee.
This leaves only three of the six bills as potential comparators: the Health and Social Care Bill, the Localism Bill and the Companies Bill. By analysing the Committee Stage marshalled lists, it is possible to calculate the total number of amendments tabled at Committee Stage for two of these three bills.
Health and Social Care Bill: 1,034 amendments
Localism Bill: 978 amendments
Both fall short of the assisted dying Bill’s current total number of amendments.
The only bill in the past twenty years likely to have had a similar number of Committee Stage amendments is therefore the 2005-2006 Companies Bill. Its marshalled lists are not publicly accessible, but the House of Lords Annual Report for that year indicates that 1,224 amendments were tabled at Committee Stage – more than the current total for the assisted dying bill. Indeed, the volume of amendments to the Companies Bill was so great, that a Minister reportedly remarked that it “caused the collapse of the traditional methodology used by the Public Bill Office for numbering amendments”.
It is important to note, however, that the Companies Bill contained 885 clauses when introduced to the Lords – 15 times as many as the 59 clauses in the assisted dying bill.
Taken together, the evidence suggests that no bill has attracted this many amendments for almost 20 years – nothing comparable since the 2005-2006 Companies Bill. And with only one Committee Stage sitting completed, the assisted dying bill could yet set a new benchmark if Peers table just over 153 more amendments.
Over 1,000 amendments have been tabled to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in the House of Lords. This blog examines the progress of the Bill at Committee Stage in the House of Lords so far, explores the likelihood of a procedural impasse and what options exist if more parliamentary time is needed.
The assisted dying bill will have its second Committee Stage sitting in the Lords. Home Office, Transport, Energy and Northern Ireland Ministers will face oral questions in the Commons. MPs will scrutinise the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, and the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill. Backbench MPs will lead debates on International Men’s Day and on Injury in Service Awards. In the Lords, scrutiny continues of the Crime and Policing Bill, the Employment Rights Bill, and the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. Select Committees will question the Work and Pensions Secretary and several junior ministers and will examine issues such as children’s care, digital ID, home ownership, cryptocurrency, fiscal policy, and clinical negligence.
In this episode, we are joined by Lord Falconer, the Labour Peer steering the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill through the House of Lords. Although he has attempted to legislate for assisted dying several times before, this is the first occasion he is working with a bill that has already cleared the House of Commons. In a wide-ranging conversation, he explains why this issue has driven him for more than a decade and assesses the Bill’s prospects of becoming law. Please help us by completing our Listener Survey. It will only take a few minutes.
Stay informed with updates and analysis on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill as it moves through Parliament. Learn about the debates, procedures, decisions, and key milestones shaping the assisted dying legislation.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – the Bill to legalise assisted dying – will begin its Committee Stage in the House of Lords on Friday 14 November. In this blog, we explain how Committee Stage works in the House of Lords, including how the House debates and decides on amendments, and how long this stage is likely to take.
