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Parliament Matters Bulletin: What’s coming up in Parliament this week? 15-19 September 2025

14 Sep 2025
Doorway at the Sovereign’s Entrance to the Palace of Westminster. Image: Doorway at the Sovereign’s Entrance to the Palace of Westminster © Hansard Society / Richard Greenhill
Image: Doorway at the Sovereign’s Entrance to the Palace of Westminster © Hansard Society / Richard Greenhill

Peers will vote on the assisted dying bill’s Second Reading, while MPs will question the new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood MP and Lord Chancellor David Lammy MP. The Commons will debate the Employment Rights, English Devolution and Community Empowerment, and Sentencing Bills, as Peers examine the Planning and Infrastructure and Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bills. Committees will hear evidence on arms exports to Israel and the Online Safety Act. MPs will also debate an e-petition on SEND support and consider a Ten Minute Rule Bill on child poverty strategy, including removing the two-child limit for Universal Credit. The youngest minister in nearly two centuries will make his first appearance before a Select Committee.

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Questions and statements: At 14:30, Home Office Ministers, including the new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, will respond to MPs’ questions. Topics include the closure of front counters at police stations, animal testing, Channel crossings, neighbourhood policing, Ukrainian refugees, crime in city centres, antisocial behaviour, disapplication of the Human Rights Act 1998, shoplifting, and police bureaucracy.

Any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow.

The Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, is due to publish a Written Statement on the Independent National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation, the “rapid” investigation he established in June to “provide truth to families suffering harm and urgently improve care and safety”. He might also make an accompanying oral statement.

Presentation of Bills: The Liberal Democrat MP Lee Dillon will introduce a Presentation Bill titled the Road Traffic (Horse and Rider Safety) Bill. The Bill would make provision about the required speed and distance for passing horses in a moving vehicle; for the inclusion of equestrian safety in driving theory tests; and about the teaching of equestrian safety in driving education.

Any MP can present a Presentation Bill – a type of Private Member’s Bill – by giving notice of their intention to do so on a preceding sitting day. However, such Bills very rarely become law without Government support.

Main business: Employment Rights Bill (Consideration of Lords amendments). The Bill has completed its journey through both Houses and now returns to the Commons, where MPs will consider the amendments made to the Bill in the Lords.

The Bill had a long and difficult passage through the Lords, with the Government defeated on 12 separate groups of amendments:

  • Guaranteed hours: Making guaranteed hours a right to request (by the employee) rather than a duty on employers to offer.

  • Short notice: Clarifying that if notice of a shift change is given more than 48 hours in advance, the right to a payment for cancelled, moved and curtailed shifts will not apply.

  • Special constables: Giving employees who serve as special constables the right to time off to carry out their police duties.

  • Unfair dismissal: Replacing the Government’s proposal to abolish the two-year qualifying period with a reduction from two years to six months.

  • Whistleblowers: Requiring the Secretary of State to make regulations to strengthen whistleblower protections by broadening unfair dismissal grounds and obliging certain employers to take reasonable steps to investigate protected disclosures.

  • Right to be accompanied: Extending the right to be accompanied at disciplinary and grievance hearings to include persons certified by a professional body, with the Secretary of State empowered to authorise such bodies by regulations.

  • Seasonal work: Requiring the Secretary of State to have regard to the specific characteristics and requirements of seasonal work and introducing a baseline definition.

  • Consultation on employment rights: Mandating consultation on new employment rights, including seeking the views of at least 500 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

  • School staff terms and conditions: Preventing the new School Support Staff Negotiating Body from blocking employers who wish to adopt new or improved employment terms and conditions.

  • Young volunteers: Exempting voluntary work on heritage railways from restrictions on the employment of children.

  • Trade union political fund: Replacing the clause allowing trade union members to opt out of political fund contributions with a requirement for contributors to have opted in.

  • Threshold for industrial action: Reinstating the requirement that at least 50% of eligible trade union members must vote for industrial action.

For each Lords amendment, the Commons must decide whether to agree with the amendment, disagree with it, or propose an alternative version. If they disagree to any amendments, or propose any alternatives, a message will be sent to the Lords setting out the Commons’ decisions. The Government has tabled motions to disagree outright with all but two Lords amendments.

  • Special constables (Lords Amendment 21): The original Lords amendment – proposed by former Met Police Commissioner Lord Hogan-Howe – would have extended the right to time off for public duties to special constables. The Government has proposed an alternative amendment as a concession – amendment (a) – requiring Ministers to review the existing right to time off for public duties and, as part of that review, to consider whether to extend it to special constables.

  • Non-disclosure agreements (Lords Amendment 22): The original amendment was proposed by the Government, and provided that any provisions in an agreement between an employer and a worker that prevent the worker from disclosing information relating to harassment or discrimination are void. The Government has tabled two amendments to the Lords amendment: amendment (a) corrects a drafting error in the definition of discrimination, so that the provision covers all kinds of discrimination in the Equality Act 2010; amendment (b) removes the exemption given to staff of the House of Commons and House of Lords in the original amendment.

The debate will last up to five hours.

Where the Commons disagrees with an amendment or proposes an alternative, the Lords will need to decide whether to back down and accept the Commons position, insist on its original amendment, or propose another alternative version. This process repeats itself until both Houses agree on the text. Given the scale of disagreement between the Government and the Lords, this legislative ‘ping pong’ could continue for several rounds before a final agreement is reached.

Motion for the approval of the draft Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 and the Terrorism Act 2000 (Port Examination Codes of Practice) Regulations 2025: These regulations were debated in a Delegated Legislation Committee last week so will be approved without further debate.

Motions for approval of Select Committee members: Three motions are scheduled for approval to revise the membership of the Modernisation, Environmental Audit, and Procedure Committees. These changes affect some Conservative and Liberal Democrat members. Following the recent ministerial reshuffle, further adjustments to Select Committee membership are expected in the coming weeks.

Presentation of Public Petitions: Rebecca Smith MP (Conservative) will present a petition on the proposed expansion of Plymouth City Council into the South Hams.

Adjournment: Independent MP Chris Hinchliff (suspended from the Labour whip after rebelling) has the adjournment debate, on the provision of council housing. (House of Commons Library briefing)

Westminster Hall: MPs will debate e-petition 711021, which calls on the Government to maintain the legal right to assessment and support in education for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The petition has over 122,000 signatures. (House of Commons Library briefing / Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology POST note / POST horizon scan)

Legislative committees:

  • English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill: A programming sub-committee will meet to agree the schedule for sittings of the Public Bill Committee appointed to scrutinise the Bill and the list of witnesses who will be called at two oral evidence sessions on Tuesday, as will have already been agreed informally between the Government and Opposition Whips.

  • Delegated Legislation Committee meeting today: to consider the draft Building Safety Levy (England) Regulations 2025. These 111-page Regulations establish the Building Safety Levy to be paid by residential property developers, which is expected to provide around £3.4 billion over 10 years to fund the remediation of building safety defects following the Grenfell Tower fire. The Regulations set out which developments are eligible, the rate of the levy, the process for administration and collection of the levy, and the dispute resolution process. The Regulations can be debated for up to 90 minutes in Committee before being formally put to the House for a vote without further debate.

Oral questions: Peers will begin the day at 14:30 by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on indeterminate sentences for public protection; age verification measures under the Online Safety Act 2023; the proposed Global Plastics Treaty; and energy efficiency in the rental sector.

Main business: Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Committee, day 7). The Committee will sit for the seventh of eight expected days for scrutiny, with committee proceedings expected to conclude at Wednesday’s sitting. (House of Lords Library briefing)

As with many Government Bills, progress has slowed in recent sittings. But at the sitting on Tuesday 9 September the Government adopted a more robust approach. Although Whips had planned for debate on 20 groups of amendments, by the usual 10 pm finish only six had been debated. Instead of adjourning, the Government allowed proceedings to continue: the House did not rise until 4am, when the 20th group had finally been debated.

The following day, Ministers went further, tabling a motion to let the Committee to begin at 11am on Wednesday 17 September, four hours earlier than usual, setting aside the Standing Order that normally prevents debates before oral questions (15:00–15:40 on Wednesdays). The Government has used a similar tactic before, most recently to allow earlier sittings on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which too faced delays.

Highlights include:

House of Commons

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 11:30, Justice Ministers, including the new Lord Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, will face questions from MPs. Topics include the Crown Court backlog, probation officers, courtroom maintenance, the safety of the prison estate, rehabilitation in prisons, victims of rape and sexual violence, blacklisting of workers, and reform of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow.

Ten Minute Rule Motion: The SNP MP Kirsty Blackman will seek to introduce a Ten Minute Rule Bill titled the Child Poverty Strategy (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill. This legislation would require the Secretary of State to publish a child poverty strategy which includes proposals for removing the two-child limit on the number of children or qualifying young persons included in the calculation of an award of Universal Credit. See our Hansard Society guide for more information about the parliamentary procedure for Ten Minute Rule Bills.

Main business: Sentencing Bill (Second Reading). This Bill proposes a number of significant reforms to the justice system:

  • Short and suspended sentences: To introduce a presumption of suspended sentences for any sentences of 12 months or less, unless an offender has breached a court order, there is a significant risk of harm, or other exceptional circumstances apply. The Bill will also extend the availability of suspended sentences to sentences of up to three years.

  • Community requirements: Add new community requirements to community and suspended sentence orders and offenders on licence to prohibit offenders from driving, entering pubs, bars and clubs, attending sports and public events, and to impose restriction zones.

  • Early termination of community sentences: Enable community orders and the supervision period of suspended sentence orders to terminate once an offender has completed all their court-ordered requirements and all other objectives in their sentence plan.

  • Foreign national offenders: Allow eligible foreign national offenders to be removed from prison for the purposes of immediate deportation any time after sentence, rather than after a certain proportion of their sentence as currently provided for. Offenders will be barred from ever returning to the UK.

  • Purpose of sentencing: Amending the statutory purposes of sentencing to put more emphasis on victims.

  • Domestic abuse: Introduce a formal judicial finding of domestic abuse at the point of sentencing.

  • Income reduction: Introduce new income reduction orders, enabling courts to require offenders on suspended sentences to pay a monthly percentage of their income, above a threshold, as a form of punishment during their sentence.

  • Sentencing Council guidelines: Require any sentencing guidelines produced by the Sentencing Council to be approved by the Lord Chancellor and the Lady Chief Justice before they can be issued. This is a further response to the sentencing guidelines issued in draft by the Sentencing Council last year, which would have required judges to take account of defendants’ race, religion and gender in deciding whether to issue a pre-sentence report.

  • Post-sentence supervision: Remove the legislative requirement for post-sentence supervision, which previously applied to offenders released from custody after less than two years, bringing all post-custody supervision under a single model.

  • Recall: Replace the existing recall system – whereby offenders who breach licence conditions are returned to prison for either a 14 or 28 fixed-day period or for the remainder of their sentence – with a 56-day fixed recall period that will apply to most offenders.

  • Bail: At present, the “no real prospects” test means that fewer exceptions to the right to be released on bail apply where the court believes there is a real prospect of a custodial sentence, whether immediate or suspended. That is, it is easier to be bailed only if the court expects neither an immediate nor a suspended custodial sentence. Given the expected increase in suspended sentences, the Bill amends the test so that it is easier to be released on bail only if there is no real prospect of an immediate custodial sentence, even if there is a real prospect of a suspended sentence. The Bill will also make it easier to impose electronic monitoring requirements on suspects released on bail.

At Second Reading, the House is debating the general principles of the Bill, rather than the details of its provisions. MPs cannot propose amendments to the text of the Bill at this stage. Parties wishing to oppose the Bill can either vote against the Second Reading or put forward a “reasoned amendment” which, if passed, would defeat the Bill but also put on the record the House’s reasons for doing so.

Adjournment: Liberal Democrat MP Ben Maguire has the adjournment debate, on professional standards in the police.

Westminster Hall: There are five debates, on:

Legislative committees:

  • English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill: The Public Bill Committee appointed to consider the Bill will take oral evidence from the witnesses agreed at the programming sub-committee on Monday. The list of witnesses is not announced in advance.

  • Delegated Legislation Committee meeting today: to consider the draft Aviation Safety (Amendment) Regulations 2025.

Oral questions: At 14:30, Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on GP contracts with the NHS; tension between Ethiopia and Eritrea; undocumented migration from France to the United Kingdom; and the Government’s assessment of the growth figures for July 2025.

Main business: Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Committee, day 11). This is the penultimate day of the Bill’s lengthy Committee Stage, with the final sitting set to take place on Thursday.

After early delays, the House agreed in July to a Government motion allowing the Bill to be taken at 11:00 on several days, despite Standing Orders normally preventing any business being taken before oral questions, which finish at 15:10. The motion covered three sittings, including today’s. But the Government has chosen not to use this power, instead scheduling the Committee Stage after oral questions. This likely reflects the Bill’s unexpectedly swift progress since the motion passed, including during the two sittings at 11:00

The next groups of amendments to be considered relate to provisions in the Bill that require academies to follow the same rules for admissions as other schools and that remove the legal presumption that new schools should be academies. (House of Lords Library briefing)

Highlights include:

House of Commons

  • International Development Committee (14:00): The Minister for International Development, Baroness Chapman of Darlington, will give evidence on aid for community-led energy.

  • Transport Committee (16:00): The new junior Minister at the Department for Transport, Keir Mather MP, will give evidence on the National Policy Statement for Ports. After last week’s reshuffle, 27-year-old Mather became the youngest Minister to hold office since William Gladstone, who was appointed 191 years ago.

House of Lords

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

Details of Wednesday’s business can be found below.

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The House of Commons will not be sitting.

Main business: Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Committee, day 8). In accordance with the motion agreed last week – and outlined in Monday’s Lords section above – the House will unusually begin scrutiny of the Bill before oral questions.

Today’s sittings are expected to complete the Committee’s consideration of the Bill. Debate will resume from the point reached at Monday’s sitting, examining the Bill and any proposed amendments. Proceedings on the Bill will pause for oral questions and a Private Member’s Bill.

Oral questions: Peers will question Ministers for 40 minutes, on Making Tax Digital; deforestation; and the Independent Commission on Adult Social Care. The topic of a fourth question will be decided by a ballot drawn at lunchtime on Monday 15 September.

Further main business: Still-Birth (Definition) Bill (Committee Stage). The Bill proposes to amend the definition of still-birth so that it applies from 20 weeks of pregnancy. Although Private Members’ Bills are usually taken through their legislative stages on Fridays, uncontroversial ones often progress on other sitting days. So far, no amendments have been tabled. If by Wednesday no amendments are submitted and no Peer signals an intention to speak, the Bill’s sponsor in the Lords (Baroness Benjamin) may move “that the order of commitment (or re-commitment) be discharged”. In that case the Committee Stage could be skipped entirely.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Committee Stage, day 8 continued): Scrutiny will resume.

Grand Committee: The House will debate five Statutory Instruments:

  • the draft Data Protection Act 2018 (Qualifying Competent Authorities) Regulations 2025;

  • the draft Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 and the Terrorism Act 2000 (Port Examination Codes of Practice) Regulations 2025;

  • the Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanctions Regulations 2025;

  • the draft Compensation for Miscarriages of Justice (Alteration of Overall Compensation Limits) Order 2025; and

  • the draft Financial Services (Overseas Recognition Regime Designations) Regulations 2025.

Of these, Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanctions Regulations 2025 introduce a new sanctions regime to target people smuggling and human trafficking. The House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has drawn these Regulations to the special attention of the House, citing their legal and political significance.

Highlights include:

House of Lords

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

The House of Commons will not be sitting.

Oral questions: At 11:00, Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on rail fares; road pricing; and genetic screening for new-born infants. The topic of a fourth question will be decided by a ballot drawn at lunchtime on Tuesday 16 September.

Procedural motion: The House will debate a motion to agree the recommendations of a recent report from the Procedure and Privileges Committee, which proposes a series of changes to the way business is handled.

The report recommends:

  • Scheduling of Questions for Short Debate (QSDs): Allowing QSDs – where backbench Peers can raise an issue and receive a ministerial response – to be taken in between other items of business, not just in the lunch, dinner break or last business slots.

  • Topical QSDs: Because the weekly ballot for Thursday topical QSDs has had few entries, it is proposed to trial a new approach next Session, filling the slot with a QSD from the five-weekly Grand Committee ballot reserve list.

  • Length of QSDs as last business: When multiple QSDs are scheduled at the end of the day, only the final one would keep the current 90-minute limit; any others would be limited to one hour.

  • Length of QSD speeches: Reduce the questioner’s time from 10 to eight minutes and the Minister’s from 12 to 10 minutes, to free more time for backbench and Opposition speakers.

  • Scope of QSDs: Amend the Companion to the House of Lords Standing Orders to clarify that a QSD should have a clear, tightly defined focus that can be fully outlined within the questioner’s allotted time.

  • Select committee debates: Impose a five-hour time limit, matching that for party and balloted general debates on Thursdays, on debates on select committee reports.

  • Speakers’ list deadlines: Make permanent the trial change to the deadline for adding names: 17:00 two working days before a debate (16:00 for Friday debates).

  • Explanatory Statements for amendments: Strengthen guidance so that Explanatory Statements are described as “strongly encouraged” rather than merely “voluntary”.

Main business: Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Committee, day 12). After an unexpectedly lengthy process, the House is expected to finish Committee Stage scrutiny of the Bill at today’s sitting.

Debate will cover the remaining clauses of the Bill and the final amendments listed on the amendment paper, starting from the point reached at Tuesday’s sitting.

No select committees are scheduled to meet in public today.

The House of Commons will not be sitting.

Private Member’s Bill (PMB): Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Second Reading, day 2). The House will resume the Second Reading debate on the Bill to legalise assisted dying, which began at last Friday’s sitting. The debate follows the speakers’ list produced by the Government Whips, setting out the order in which members will speak. The next peer scheduled to speak, and therefore open today’s debate, is Baroness Thornton, a former Labour Minister.

Once the remaining speakers have contributed, the Bill’s sponsor Lord Falconer of Thoroton will give a second speech to wind up the debate. To understand how the House will reach a decision on the Bill, it is important to recall how the debate has unfolded so far.

  1. Falconer’s Second Reading motion: As sponsor of the Bill Lord Falconer opened the debate (on Friday 12 September) by moving “that the Bill be now read a second time”. At this point, the formal question before the House was whether the Bill should receive a Second Reading.

  2. Forsyth amendment: Lord Forsyth of Drumlean then moved a non-fatal amendment to the Second Reading motion, to register a concern without blocking the Bill. His amendment called on the Government, in light of the report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee on the Bill, to ensure sufficient time is made available at the amending stages of the Bill – namely Committee and Report – and to provide “full support at ministerial and official level to the peer in charge of the bill” for these remaining stages. Once moved, the formal question before the House thus became “that the amendment be made”.

  3. Carlile amendment to the amendment: Finally, Lord Carlile of Berriew then moved an amendment to Lord Forsyth’s amendment. His proposal removed the call for ministerial and official support but retained the request for more time at the later amending stages. From that point, the formal question under debate was that the amendment in the name of Lord Carlile of Berriew to the amendment in the name of Lord Forsyth of Drumlean be made.

Decisions the House will need to make today on the Second Reading:

  1. Lord Carlile’s amendment to Lord Forsyth’s amendment: Lord Carlile will need to decide whether to withdraw his amendment or press it to a vote. If he seeks to withdraw his amendment, he can only do so with the leave (agreement) of the House. If the amendment is not withdrawn, it will be put to a vote.

  2. Lord Forsyth’s amendment to the Second Reading motion: The House will then move on to Lord Forsyth’s amendment. Lord Forsyth will also need to decide whether to withdraw his amendment – again, with the leave of the House – or to press it to a vote. The text of the amendment that is put to the House will depend upon whether Lord Carlile’s earlier amendment succeeds.

  3. Second Reading: The House will then vote on the main motion that the Bill be now read a second time.

  • If Lord Forsyth’s amendment (either amended or unamended by Lord Carlile’s amendment) is agreed to, the House will vote on the Second Reading motion as amended.

  • If the Second Reading motion – amended or unamended – is agreed to, then the Bill will progress to Committee Stage.

  • If the Second Reading motion is rejected, then the Bill will fall.

If a Peer wishes to oppose a Bill at Second Reading, it is conventional to do so by tabling a fatal amendment – one that would change the Second Reading motion to “that this House declines to give the Bill a Second Reading” – rather than by directly voting against the Second Reading motion itself.

Since no fatal amendment has been proposed, it is likely that there will be no division (when Members divide the House by going into the voting lobbies to have their vote formally recorded and counted). A decision will likely be taken instead “on the voices” and if the audible expressions of “content” greatly outweigh those that are “not content” the Bill will proceed. Opponents of the Bill may, in contravention of normal practice, press the matter to a formal division to put their vote on the record, but this would be regarded by many Peers as discourteous to the House having not given prior notice of their intention to do so by tabling in advance an amendment to the Second Reading motion proposing that the House reject the Bill.

If the Bill is given a Second Reading, the House will then have to decide on two motions to “commit” the Bill to the next stage for clause-by-clause scrutiny. As sponsor of the Bill, Lord Falconer has tabled a motion to commit the Bill to Committee of the Whole House (rather than the alternative option of Grand Committee). Committee of the Whole House is the norm for a Bill of this type where it is expected that changes to the Bill will be made. It takes place in the Chamber and all Peers can participate. In contrast, Grand Committee takes place in a large Committee room (known as the Moses Room) which functions as a second chamber for some legislative business.

Baroness Berger has given notice that once Lord Falconer has moved his motion, she will seek to amend it, so that the Bill is first committed to a select committee. Committing a Bill to a select committee is very rare in the House of Lords but would enable the House to take oral and written evidence. The Committee Stage of the Bill would not then begin until the select committee produces its report on the Bill.

Decisions the House may need to make today on committal of the Bill:

  1. Baroness Berger’s amendment to the motion to commit: Baroness Berger will need to decide whether to move her amendment. If she does so the House will vote on it.

  2. Motion to commit: Once the House has disposed of the amendment, it will vote on the main motion to commit the Bill.

  • If the motion has been amended, the question will be whether to commit the Bill to a select committee.

  • If the House does not agree to the amendment, it will vote on Lord Falconer’s original motion to commit the Bill to a Committee of the Whole House.

If the Bill is committed to a select committee, Baroness Berger will move a further motion detailing what is required of that committee:

(a) Remit: The Committee shall consider “the safeguards and procedure contained in the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill”.

(b) Witnesses: The Committee shall hear evidence “only from professional bodies, those with professional experience of coronial services, and Ministers”.

(c) Deadline to report: 31 December 2025.

If the Bill is committed directly to Committee of the Whole House, then the Government Whips have indicated that there will be at least four days of Committee Stage:

  • Friday 24 October

  • Friday 31 October

  • Friday 21 November

  • Friday 12 December

For more detail on the legislative process in the House of Lords, the Hansard Society’s guide provides further information about each stage.

The House of Commons will have risen for the Conference Recess at the close of business on Tuesday 16 September, with the House of Lords rising three days later at the close of business on Friday 19 September. Both Houses will return from recess on Monday 13 October. The next edition of this Bulletin will therefore be published on Sunday 12 October.

The Hansard Society is a charity. If you find this Bulletin useful please help us cover the research and production costs. A small donation of just £3 per month – less than the cost of a cup of coffee – will help us keep you up-to-date on the issues that matter in Parliament. Donate here

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