Questions and statements: At 14:30, Defence Ministers will respond to MPs’ questions. Topics include the role of small companies in defence procurement, defence and security cooperation with the EU, support for veterans, troop mobility, jobs in the defence sector, access to the European Rearmament Fund, NATO, and armed forces accommodation.

Any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow.

Main business: Mental Health Bill (Second Reading). This Bill, which has already passed through the House of Lords, makes a number of changes to the existing legislative framework for mental health. The main provisions of the Bill were outlined in an earlier edition of the Bulletin.

During the Bill’s passage through the House of Lords, Peers inserted four groups of amendments into the Bill against the wishes of the Government:

• Persons authorised to detain: Amendments to create a new category of ‘authorised persons’ permitted to detain persons under the Mental Health Act 1983. These would include specially trained medical practitioners and mental health professionals, to remove the need for police to attend mental health incidents.

• Community treatment orders (CTOs): An amendment making changes in relation to CTOs, allowing those who might otherwise be detained under the 1983 Act to be discharged into the community subject to certain conditions. The amendment requires CTOs to align with a Government-issued code of practice, limits their default duration to 12 months, mandates regular reviews including a six-month review for extended orders, and strengthens patient consultation and oversight.

• Nominated persons and parental responsibility: The Bill replaces the existing ‘nearest relative’ provision with a ‘nominated person’ who would represent the interests of someone detained under the 1983 Act. A Government amendment in the Lords proposed that where a local authority has parental responsibility for a child under 16, the local authority would be appointed as the nominated person for that child, but where the local authority has no such responsibility, the nominated person would need to be someone with parental responsibility. The House of Lords amended this latter provision to also allow a guardian or a person with a childcare court order to be appointed, instead of someone with parental responsibility, taking into account the child’s wishes where possible.

• De-briefing of patients: An amendment to introduce a requirement for mental health patients to be de-briefed following their discharge from hospital.

Ministers are now likely to seek to remove these amendments during the Bill’s passage through the House of Commons.

The Government tends to try to remove unwanted Lords amendments during Committee Stage in the Commons. Once MPs have given the Bill a Third Reading, the above issues may form the basis of legislative ping pong between the two Houses.

At Second Reading, the House debates the principles of the Bill and MPs cannot propose amendments to the Bill’s text. (House of Commons Library briefing)

Adjournment: The Conservative MP Rebecca Paul has the adjournment debate, on Government community funding and support for local pubs.

Westminster Hall: MPs will debate e-petition 701159, which calls on the Government to legislate to allow transgender people to self-identify their legal gender. The petition has acquired over 127,000 signatures. (House of Commons Library briefing)

Legislative committees: There are no legislative committees scheduled to meet today.

Oral questions: At 14:30, Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on the expansion and electrification of public transport networks to meet net-zero emissions; small modular nuclear reactors; investment in science and innovation; and discussions with Sports England on the meaning of “sex” in the Equality Act 2010, following the Supreme Court’s recent decision.

Main business: Data (Use and Access) Bill (Consideration of Commons amendments and/or reasons). There are three outstanding areas of disagreement between the two Houses:

• Recording of personal data: The House of Lords initially passed two amendments – against the Government’s wishes – to ensure consistent definitions of personal attributes across digital verification services in Government. The Commons subsequently removed both provisions. In response, Peers took a different approach to the two provisions, in one case agreeing to the Commons amendment but amending it further, in the other case disagreeing to the Commons amendment and proposing an amendment in lieu. In both cases they sought to narrow the scope of the provision to sex and gender attributes. The House of Commons response was to disagree with the Lord’s amendment in relation to the first provision and insist on their original amendment in relation to the second provision. Peers must now decide how to respond. At this stage of ping-pong, Peers will be mindful of the need to avoid ‘double insistence’, which would potentially endanger the Bill. This is the legislative convention that if the Lords say something must be done, and the Commons refuse to do it and offer no compromise, and then the Lords insist on their original amendment and the Commons insist on their original rejection, the whole Bill is dead. So, there is always a strong incentive to avoid this scenario, offering alternative versions of an amendment to save a bill.

• Scientific research: The Lords originally amended the Bill to require that scientific research must serve the public interest to qualify for exemptions from restrictions on the reuse of personal data. The Commons removed this provision. While the Lords accepted its removal, they introduced an alternative amendment stating that research would only be considered “reasonable”, for the purposes of the Act, if it adheres to appropriate ethical, legal and professional frameworks. The Commons once again rejected this proposal. The Lords must now decide whether to insist on their compromise amendment, drop the amendment, or propose a new alternative amendment.

• Transparency in relation to AI: The Lords initially added provisions to the Bill requiring AI companies to be more transparent about their use of web crawlers and bots in training AI models, particularly where copyright-protected content is involved. The Commons removed the provision, and while the Lords accepted its removal, they proposed a revised version – only for the Commons to reject this as well. Controversially, the Commons cited financial privilege – the primacy of the Commons over matters relating to public finances and expenditure – as the reason for rejecting the compromise. In response, Baroness Kidron, the crossbench peer and former film director who introduced the original amendments, has tabled a new version designed to avoid triggering financial privilege. The Lords must now decide whether to insist on its compromise amendment, accept Baroness Kidron’s new amendment, or accept the removal of the provision from the Bill and not offer any alternative amendment. If the Lords insists on any of its amendments, or agrees to any new amendments, the Bill will return to the Commons for further consideration.

Employment Rights Bill (Committee, day 4 of 7). On the first day in Committee, only five groups of amendments were disposed of – well short of the nine groups the Government Whips had hoped to cover. While day two met expectations, momentum slowed again on day three, with just five of ten planned groups addressed. Although the final sitting is provisionally scheduled for Thursday 5 June, there are 60 groups of amendments still to dispose of. At the current pace, meeting this deadline may prove challenging.

The next group of amendments to be debated relate variously to: strengthening the investigation of workplace sexual harassment or assault; restricting the duty for employers to prevent employees from suffering from third-party harassment; workplace non-disclosure agreements; and duties to protect workers from gender-based violence and harassment. (House of Lords Library briefing)

The House will then debate a motion to approve the draft Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2025. The regulations would allow certain holders of car and light van licences to drive certain zero-emission vehicles with a larger mass without additional training requirements, to account for the additional weight from heavier batteries in those vehicles.

A regret motion has been tabled by Lord Moylan which criticises the regulations for not extending to alternatively fuelled vehicles which are not zero-emission vehicles. Regret motions allow the House to express concerns about an instrument without blocking it.

Grand Committee: Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill (Committee). This is the Government’s legislation to block the proposed new guideline on the imposition of community and custodial sentences published by the Sentencing Council. The Bill would prohibit any sentencing guideline being framed by reference to an offender’s personal characteristics, particularly race, religion, and cultural background, when determining the need for a pre-sentence report.

Divisions are not allowed in Grand Committee, which takes place in a committee room rather than on the floor of the House. Amendments to the Bill can therefore only be made unanimously at this stage. As a result, amendments tabled for Grand Committee are often intended primarily to probe the Government’s response or to prompt a debate.

The Bill is short and contains only one substantive clause. Proceedings should therefore be dispensed with relatively quickly. Nonetheless, 12 amendments have been proposed, including ones to grant the Sentencing Council greater discretion in drawing up guidelines or to weaken the prohibition on reference to personal characteristics. (House of Lords Library briefing)

Highlights include:

House of Commons

• Public Accounts Committee (15:30): The Permanent Secretary and other senior officials at the Department for Education will give evidence on increasing teacher numbers in secondary and further education. This inquiry follows a National Audit report published last month, which found that “there remains a shortage of teachers”. The report also questioned the effectiveness of the Government’s plan to recruit 6,500 new teachers, stating that it is “not yet clear whether this will fully address current and expected teacher shortages”.

Joint

• National Security Strategy Committee (16:30): Former senior military officers and experts on international law will give evidence on the UK’s ability to protect undersea cables.

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

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Private Business: Royal Albert Hall Bill (Second Reading). Sir Christopher Chope has indicated on the Order Paper that he will block this controversial Private Bill from being approved without a debate. See a previous Bulletin for an explanation of the esoteric procedural rules applicable to Private Bills in general and this one in particular. We also discussed the Royal Albert Hall Bill in last week’s Parliament Matters podcast.

Questions and statements: Shortly after 11:30, Treasury Ministers, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will face questions from MPs. Topics on the Order Paper concern support for clean energy, lifetime mortgages, the impact of the Autumn Budget, the Green Book, the night-time economy, the UK–India free trade agreement, changes to inheritance tax for agricultural land, the Spending Review, funding for the north of England, economic growth, and support for vulnerable families.

Any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow.

Presentation of Bill: The Liberal Democrat MP Lisa Smart will present a bill titled the Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985 (Amendment) Bill, which would amend the 1985 Act in relation to domestic abuse. See the Hansard Society’s guide for more information on the parliamentary procedure for Presentation Bills.

Ten Minute Rule Motion: The Labour MP Deirdre Costigan will introduce a Ten Minute Rule Bill titled the Reasonable Adjustments (Duty on Employers to Respond) Bill. This legislation would establish a deadline by which employers must respond to requests for reasonable adjustments from disabled workers. See our Hansard Society guide for more information about the parliamentary procedure for Ten Minute Rule Bills.

Main business: Victims and Courts Bill (Second Reading). This Government Bill was presented to the House of Commons on 7 May and makes provision in relation to victims and criminal justice. Its main provisions include:

• giving courts the power to require offenders to attend sentencing hearings, to find them in criminal contempt if they do not comply, and to use reasonable force where necessary and proportionate;

• automatically restricting parental responsibility for child sex offenders with a sentence of more than four years for an offence against a child they hold parental responsibility for;

• providing victims with greater certainty about the routes available to receive information about an offender’s release;

• strengthening the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner, including enabling the Commissioner to exercise their functions in relation to individual cases with public policy relevance, placing a duty on local authorities and social housing providers to cooperate with the Commissioner, and requiring the Commissioner to report annually on various bodies’ compliance with the Victims’ Code;

• changing the statutory eligibility requirements for Crown Prosecutors;

• giving the Lord Chancellor the power to set rates at which prosecutors acting in private prosecutions can recover expenses they incur; and

• amending the time limit within which the Attorney General can refer a sentence under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme after a request to review the sentence is made.

At Second Reading, the House debates the principles of the Bill. MPs cannot propose amendments to the Bill’s text.

Adjournment: The Labour MP Joe Morris has the adjournment debate, on the condition of school buildings in Northumberland and Newcastle.

Westminster Hall: There are five debates, on:

• pensions for people living overseas (House of Commons Library briefing);

• access to GP services in Christchurch (House of Commons Library data);

• Government support for children in adoptive and kinship placements (House of Commons Library briefing);

• Government safety advice for visiting Laos; and

• Government policies on electric vehicle charging (House of Commons Library briefing).

Legislative committees:

• Planning and Infrastructure Bill: The Public Bill Committee will continue its consideration of the Bill. The programme order agreed at Second Reading states that the Committee must conclude by Thursday 22 May. The Committee has made its way through the first three of the Bill’s five substantive parts. The next parts of the Bill to be considered relate to development corporations and compulsory purchase.

• Delegated Legislation Committee meeting today: to consider the draft Pollution Prevention and Control (Fees) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2025.

Oral questions: Peers will begin the day at 14:30 by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on the use of assistive technology in education; reversing recent declines in healthy life expectancy; progress in establishing a Contact Group for Sudan ceasefire talks; and the performance of the Criminal Cases Review Commission in dealing with miscarriages of justice, following the exoneration of Peter Sullivan after 38 years’ imprisonment.

Main business: Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Committee, day 1 of 7). Peers will begin the Committee stage of the Bill by considering amendments to its opening clauses. These initial provisions focus on children’s social care, covering key areas such as child protection and safeguarding, support for children in care, support for care leavers, assistance for carers, and arrangements for accommodating children.

Amendments are often tabled at Committee Stage in the Lords to probe the Government’s position or to encourage a debate, rather than to force a decision, particularly because any amendments which are voted on and defeated at Committee cannot then be re-tabled at Report Stage where they are more likely to succeed. (House of Lords Library briefing)

Highlights include:

House of Commons

• Science, Innovation and Technology Committee (09:30): The Chief Executive of Ofcom will give evidence on its work, in particular on the implementation of the Online Safety Act, the regulation of big tech companies, telecommunications and rural broadband, cyber security and AI regulation.

• Education Committee and Work and Pensions Committee (10:00): As part of a joint sitting of the two committees, the former Cabinet Minister Lord (David) Blunkett will give evidence on the Child Poverty Taskforce, alongside the former Children’s Commissioner, Baroness Longfield.

• Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (10:00): Demos, Reform, and the Future Governance Forum will give evidence on Mission Government.

• Treasury Committee (10:00): The CEOs of Lloyds, HSBC UK, Barclays UK, and NatWest will give evidence on banks and building societies, including on the economic outlook, deregulation, IT outages, ISAs, and bank branches.

• Committee on Standards (10:30): Representatives of Global Media & Entertainment and LBC, as well as Transparency International and MySociety, will give evidence on MPs’ outside employment and interests.

• Foreign Affairs Committee (10:30): The Committee will hold a joint evidence session with the Ukrainian Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Policy to discuss the UK–Ukraine relationship and Russian misinformation and interference.

• Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (11:00): The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary, Steve Reed MP, will give evidence on the work of his Department and its arms-length bodies.

• Modernisation Committee (11:45): Four disabled members of the House of Lords – Baroness (Sal) Brinton, Baroness (Tanni) Grey-Thompson, Lord (Kevin) Shinkwin and Lord (David) Blunkett – will give evidence on the accessibility of the parliamentary estate.

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.

Questions and statements: At 11:30, Northern Ireland Office Ministers will face questions from MPs. Topics on the Order Paper include compensation for people detained during the Troubles, the impact of new trade agreements, funding for addiction treatment, economic growth in Northern Ireland, protections for veterans, the Good Friday Agreement, and violence against women and girls.

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

Any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow.

Ten Minute Rule Motion: The Labour MP Luke Charters will seek to introduce a Ten Minute Rule Bill titled the Regulation of Bailiffs (Assessment and Report) Bill. The legislation would require the Secretary of State to publish an assessment of the effectiveness of current regulation of the debt collection and civil enforcement sectors.

Main business: Opposition Day (8th allotted day): Motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. On Opposition Days, an opposition party is entitled to choose the topic that the House debates. The subject of this debate is yet to be announced and will be selected by the Conservatives. The topic will be confirmed when Wednesday’s Order Paper is published.

This is the eighth Opposition Day out of the 20 that must be granted in this Session. Of these, 17 days are awarded to the Official Opposition, with the final three granted to the third party, in this case the Liberal Democrats.

Adjournment: The Conservative MP John Glen has the adjournment debate on the future of the UK Health Security Agency site at Porton Down.

Westminster Hall: There are five debates, on:

• chronic urinary tract infections (House of Commons Library briefing);

• the impact of roadworks on communities in Cheshire;

• returning forcibly deported children to Ukraine (House of Commons Library briefing);

• broadband and mobile connectivity in rural areas (House of Commons Library briefing); and

• care for Parkinson’s patients (House of Commons Library briefing).

Legislative committees:

• Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) Bill: This Bill will begin its Public Bill Committee stage today. Introduced as a Private Member’s Bill (PMB) by Conservative MP Aphra Brandreth, the Bill aims to strengthen enforcement in response to incidents of livestock worrying by dogs. It is the third PMB this Session to progress to Committee Stage following a successful Second Reading. PMBs typically complete Committee Stage in a single sitting, so the Committee is expected to conclude its work today. The production of Explanatory Notes by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs suggests the Bill is either a handout bill or it otherwise has Government backing. Meanwhile, because the House did not complete the Report Stage of the assisted dying bill last Friday, the second day of that bill’s Report Stage has been scheduled for Friday 13 June. However, new Report Stages take precedence over adjourned Report Stages. This means that if the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) Bill completes Committee, and Aphra Brandreth selects Friday 13 June for its Report Stage, it will have priority on the Order Paper ahead of the assisted dying bill. As such, the Member’s choice of date will be worth keeping an eye on.

• Delegated Legislation Committee meeting today: to consider the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Increase of Borrowing Limits) Order 2025.

Oral questions: At 15:00, Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on armed forces recruitment; online harms faced by young people; and declassified files concerning Government attitudes to the Irish Republican Army. The topic of a fourth question will be decided by a ballot drawn at lunchtime on Monday 19 May.

Main business: Employment Rights Bill (Committee, day 5 of 7). The House will continue its clause-by-clause scrutiny of the Bill and will begin its consideration at whichever group of amendments the House has reached at the preceding Monday sitting.

Grand Committee: Peers will debate a motion to “take note” of the proposed National Policy Statement for Nuclear Energy Generation. National Policy Statements set out the criteria by which applications for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects should be decided by the Secretary of State and are subject to parliamentary procedure. (House of Lords Library briefing)

Highlights include:

House of Commons

• Northern Ireland Affairs Committee (09:30): The Chief Commissioner and other representatives of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, established by the previous Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, will give evidence on the Labour Government’s new approach to addressing the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland.

• Treasury Committee (14:15): The chief executives of Nationwide, Yorkshire Building Society, Skipton, and other banks and building societies will give evidence on the banks and building societies sector, including on the economic outlook, deregulation, IT outages, ISAs, and bank branches.

House of Lords

• Constitution Committee (10:30): The legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg and journalist Frances Gibb will give evidence on the rule of law.

Joint

• Human Rights Committee (13:15): The Minister for Security, Dan Jarvis MP, and the Met Police’s Head of Counter-Terrorism Policing will give evidence on transnational repression in the UK.

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

Both Houses will rise for the Whitsun recess at the close of business today and will return on Monday 2 June.

Questions and statements: At 09:30, Culture, Media and Sport Ministers will face questions from MPs. Topics on the Order Paper include the new remote gambling levy, film production in the UK, ticket pricing, grassroots sports facilities, the Cultural Cooperation Agreement with India, barriers for UK artists touring in the EU, local heritage, the distribution of funding within the English Football League, local radio, and the potential impact of US tariffs.

At 10:10, MPs will put questions to representatives of the Church Commissioners, the House of Commons Commission, and the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission.

• Eight of the 10 questions on the Order Paper are to the representative of the Church Commissioners, Marsha de Cordova MP, and cover topics including blessings for same-sex couples, support for Christians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, safeguarding, value for money for leaseholders, and the Church’s historic role in slavery.

• One question is to the representative of the House of Commons Commission, Nick Smith MP, about to implementation of the recent Supreme Court judgment regarding the Equality Act. This question may relate to reports that a cross-party group of parliamentary staff has written to the Speaker expressing concerns about the effect of the judgment on transgender employees on the parliamentary estate.

• One question is directed to Stephen Gethins MP, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, regarding whether the Local Government Boundary Commission has sufficient resources to implement the proposed changes to local authorities outlined in the Government’s English Devolution White Paper.

Any Urgent Questions will follow.

The Leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, will then present her weekly Business Statement, setting out the business in the House for the next couple of weeks. Any other Ministerial Statements will follow.

Main business: “If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.” This item on the Order Paper is likely to be in relation to the Data (Use and Access) Bill, which returns to the House of Lords on Monday for consideration of Commons amendments. Key unresolved issues include the consistency of personal data held by Government, AI transparency, and the use of data in scientific research. If the Lords insist on any of their amendments, or send back any fresh amendments, then the House of Commons will need to respond. If not, then the Bill will proceed to Royal Assent. If a debate is required, a supplementary programme motion agreed last week limits it to one hour.

MPs will then participate in two general debates, the subjects of which were chosen by the Backbench Business Committee:

• Access to NHS dentistry (Melanie Onn, Labour): In her application to the Committee, she argued that the House had not debated NHS dentistry since the Government’s latest announcements last month, and warned that “it looks as though 50% of adults in England will never, in their lifetime, see an NHS dentist”. (House of Commons Library briefing)

• Dementia care (Caroline Voaden, Liberal Democrat): In her application, she argued that there would be “interest across the House from all Members who have constituents and family members with a diagnosis of dementia”.

Adjournment: The Labour MP Markus Campbell-Savours has the adjournment debate, on the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine Project.

Westminster Hall: There is one debate today, on the EU–UK summit. The topic was jointly proposed by Labour MP Stella Creasy and the Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice MP – an unusual pairing that highlights backbench cross-party co-operation on matters of national significance. Creasy chairs the pro-European Labour Movement for Europe, while Tice has co-founded several pro-Brexit groups, including Leave.EU. In their application to the Backbench Business Committee, both MPs emphasised that opportunities for backbenchers to voice their views on European affairs are constrained – due to time limits on speeches in the Chamber and reduced parliamentary scrutiny following the abolition of the European Scrutiny Committee last year. (House of Commons Library briefing)

Legislative committees:

• Planning and Infrastructure Bill: Under the programme order agreed by the House, the Public Bill Committee must conclude consideration of the Bill today. Any remaining amendments or clauses which have not been debated will be put to the Committee at the end of proceedings without debate.

Introduction of a new Peer: Michael Gove (now Lord Gove), the former Conservative Cabinet Minister and now editor of The Spectator magazine, will be introduced to the House.

Oral questions: Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on steps taken to secure the release of Jimmy Lai, currently imprisoned in Hong Kong; cross-party talks on social care reform; and young people’s media literacy. The topic of a fourth question will be decided by a ballot drawn at lunchtime on Tuesday 20 May.

Main business: Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Committee, Day 2 of 7). The House will continue to consider the Bill in Committee, resuming its scrutiny with the group of amendments reached in the preceding sitting two days ago (see Tuesday’s House of Lords business above).

Two select committee meetings are scheduled for today:

House of Lords

• Environment and Climate Change Committee (10:00): The Minister for Water and Flooding, Emma Hardy MP, and the Minister for Rural Affairs, Daniel Zeichner MP, will give evidence on the use and management of reactive nitrogen.

• Social Mobility Policy Committee (10:05): Representatives of the Trades Union Congress, National Education Union, and UNISON will give evidence on social mobility policy.

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

Both Houses will return from the Whitsun recess on Monday 2 June. The next edition of this Bulletin will therefore be published on Sunday 1 June.

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