Because there is no selection of amendments in the House of Lords, every amendment that is tabled must be debated. The Government has scheduled four Friday sittings for Committee Stage. The question is whether that will be remotely enough time to debate and decide on more than 1,000 amendments?

Fortunately, the House does not need to debate every amendment individually. Instead, to generate a more focused discussion and prevent the debate becoming repetitive, related amendments are grouped and debated together. Groupings are arranged with the agreement of the Members who tabled the amendments. That means any Peer can insist that their amendment be debated separately or in a smaller group, thus increasing the number of groups to be debated and therefore the time required.

So far, the first 219 amendments have been organised into 20 groups, averaging approximately 11 amendments per group. If that pattern holds, Committee Stage could involve more than 90 groups in total.

At the first sitting on Friday 14 November, Lord Falconer suggested the House aim to debate the first ten groups. In the event, the House managed to debate only two, both of them comparatively small groups: one group of six amendments and a second consisting of a single amendment.[1] At this rate – two groups (or seven amendments) per sitting – across four sittings, Peers will barely make a dent in the mountain of amendments to be debated.

Meanwhile, more than fourteen times as many amendments (101) have been tabled since the first sitting than were debated during that first sitting (7). Instead of shrinking, the amendment list continues to grow.

Unless the pace accelerates dramatically, or additional sittings are arranged, the Bill is unlikely to complete consideration of all the amendments within the planned four-day Committee Stage. Even if the pace improves, three remaining sittings are still unlikely to provide enough time to accommodate debate on more than 1,000 amendments

If the Bill is to progress, more time will therefore need to be found. In practice, there are four options:

• schedule additional Friday sittings;

• use non-Government time on Mondays to Thursdays;

• create extra time outside the House’s normal sitting hours; or

• allocate Government time on Mondays to Thursdays.

These options could be used individually or in combination. But each presents a different range of advantages and disadvantages. A fifth possibility might therefore provide a way forward: allowing the House itself – rather than the Government, after consultation with the Usual Channels – to determine how the necessary time should be found.

Friday sittings are arranged by the Government Whips in consultation with the Usual Channels (business managers from other parties and the crossbenches).Extending the current pattern of Friday sittings may appear straightforward, but it presents two challenges.

• Capacity: Fridays are already used for Lords’ Private Members’ Bills (PMBs), Commons’ PMBs that have reached the Lords (which typically have Government support), general debates, and select committee report debates. More Fridays for the assisted dying bill would reduce the time available for these other kinds of business.

• Support among Peers: Frequent Friday sittings are unusual (they typically take place once or twice a month) and unpopular, particularly among Peers who live some distance from London. They are especially contentious when business is controversial or requires formal votes (divisions), as it becomes harder for Peers to choose not to attend.

At the end of the first sitting, the Chief Whip confirmed that “the Government remain neutral and will not be providing government time for this Bill”, but that he would “work with the Usual Channels to see what other time can be made available from non-government time”.

In the House of Lords, the distinction between Government and non-government time is blurrier than in the Commons. In practice, Mondays to Wednesdays are almost always reserved for Government business, while Fridays are almost always reserved for non-government business. The situation on Thursdays is more complicated.

At the start of a Session, Thursdays are typically used for general debates – on topics chosen by opposition, crossbench or backbench peers – but later on in the Session – usually around the eight-month mark - there is a shift, and Thursdays are more often used for legislation.

In a standard one-year session starting in May, the shift from general debates to legislation would usually come in January. Because this session started in July 2024, the switch occurred in March 2025 and almost all Thursday sittings since have been used for Government legislation. It is therefore unclear what “non-government time” the Chief Whip had in mind.

However, this Session has been extended beyond the standard 12-month length. As things stand, if Government legislation continues to take up Thursday sittings, it will do so for a larger proportion of the Session than normal. During the extended Session in 2017-19, the Lords restored Thursdays to general debates after about a year.

Something similar could happen again, potentially allowing Thursdays to be allocated to the assisted dying bill instead. This would be unusual and would require agreement between the Government and Opposition through the Usual Channels. In practice, the Government may be reluctant to give up legislative time, and it would also risk perceptions of Government bias rather than neutrality.

Another possibility would be to send the Bill to Grand Committee. This is an alternative debating chamber, located in a large committee room (the Moses Room), where any Peer may attend and speak. Debates on legislation are often held in Grand Committee, preventing bills from consuming the limited time available in the Chamber. However, this comes with constraints. Divisions cannot be held in Grand Committee and any changes to the Bill must therefore be agreed unanimously. And the Grand Committee room has a smaller capacity than the Chamber, potentially limiting the number of Peers who can attend and contribute to the debate.

The House’s usual start time each day is:

• Monday: 2:30pm;

• Tuesday: 2:30pm;

• Wednesday: 3:00pm;

• Thursday: 11:00am; and

• Friday: 9:00am.

However, in this Session the Government has occasionally scheduled 11am starts on Mondays to Wednesdays – before oral questions – to make time for consideration of legislation that has fallen behind schedule. This creates three to four extra hours of debating time each day without disrupting the House’s other scheduled business.

A similar approach could be taken for the assisted dying bill. However, earlier sitting times have generated some resistance – including from the Conservative frontbench – particularly on days when the House is also sitting late into the night. Further early starts may provoke similar objections.

The simplest route might be for the Government to allow the Bill to be considered in Government time.

This would avoid extra Friday sittings or early mornings, but poses two major difficulties, both of which have been hinted at by the Government.

• Capacity: Government bills are already behind schedule, with debates routinely overrunning. The Government may be unwilling to sacrifice parliamentary time that is needed for their own legislative programme

• Neutrality: Allocating Government time could be portrayed by opponents as tacit support for the Bill.

If the Government wishes to avoid the appearance of taking sides, it could place the decision in the hands of the House. Any of the four options above could be enabled by a motion – for example allowing the assisted dying Bill to be taken on specified dates or in specified venues – and put to the House for decision. This would ensure the House collectively, rather than the Government, authorises any procedural deviation from normal practice, thereby mitigating the risk to perceptions of the Government’s neutrality.

[1] The second group contained just one amendment – amendment 2 – relating to mental capacity and was debated for approximately three hours. Amendment 2 was put into its own group despite the explanatory statement saying only that the amendment was linked to another amendment to clause 3 (probably amendment 115, which also relates to mental capacity). Typically, such linked amendments would be grouped together to avoid having two very similar debates on each amendment, but in this case, amendment 2 was separated from amendment 115. The consequence of de-grouping is that Peers may have a further – and potentially repetitive – debate on mental capacity when the House reaches amendment 115.