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Parliament Matters Bulletin: What’s coming up in Parliament this week? 14-18 July 2025

13 Jul 2025
The Palace of Westminster seen from Abingdon Street Gardens. Image: The Palace of Westminster seen from Abingdon Street Gardens © Hansard Society / Richard Greenhill
Image: The Palace of Westminster seen from Abingdon Street Gardens © Hansard Society / Richard Greenhill

MPs will consider a rare privilege motion relating to a request from the Omagh Bombing inquiry, while the Conservatives will choose the topic for Tuesday’s Opposition Day debate. Select Committees will question Cabinet Ministers on welfare reform, the NHS Plan, foreign policy, national security, and policy announcements made first to the media rather than Parliament. The Deprivation of Citizenship Orders Bill will complete its Commons stages. Peers will scrutinise bills on renters’ rights, employment, and planning. MPs will debate Statutory Instruments on media mergers, murder sentencing, and energy costs, and will vote on extending interest registration rules for MPs’ staff. Backbench MPs will lead debates on giving every child the best start in life, the Global Plastics Treaty and end of life care. The House of Lords will debate the Strategic Defence Review.

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Questions and statements: At 14:30, Housing, Communities, and Local Government Ministers will respond to MPs’ questions. Topics include leasehold reform, unsafe properties, housebuilding, Council Tax, funding for homelessness prevention, participation in elections, local government debt, the planning process, community regeneration, and high streets.

Any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow.

Main business: Motion relating to privilege: Tonia Antoniazzi MP, chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, and Simon Hoare MP, the chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, have tabled a motion relating to a public petition, presented to Parliament by Antoniazzi last Wednesday (9 July), from the solicitor to the Omagh Bombing inquiry. The solicitor’s petition “requests that the House makes arrangements to supply the transcript of unreported oral evidence taken from Mr Norman Baxter by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in private session on 11 November 2009”. Mr Baxter is a retired Chief Superintendent of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The motion tabled by Antoniazzi and Hoare, if agreed, would refer the matter to the Committee of Privileges to consider the petition and determine whether the requested transcript should be released to the Omagh Bombing inquiry.

The issue raises a matter of parliamentary privilege. As defined in Erskine May, privilege refers to the “sum of certain rights enjoyed by each House collectively as a constituent part of the High Court of Parliament and by Members of each House individually, without which they could not discharge their functions, and which exceed those possessed by other bodies or individuals”. In this case, the matter of privilege relates to Article 9 of the Bill of Rights, which accords legal immunity to Members for what they say or do in Parliament and to witnesses giving evidence to select committees (“proceedings in Parliament”).

Last Thursday (10 July), the Speaker announced that he would give precedence to this matter of privilege today (Monday 14 July). In accordance with Erskine May, when the Speaker rules that a motion which raises a matter of privilege should take precedence, it supersedes all other business, including Government business, and is taken as the first item of public business following any urgent questions.

Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill (Committee and Remaining Stages). This Bill makes targeted changes to the procedure for depriving a person of citizenship, in response to a recent judgment by the UK Supreme Court. Specifically, it allows citizenship deprivation orders to remain in effect throughout the entire appeals process, to prevent those who have lost their citizenship from returning to the UK until the Government has exhausted its opportunities to appeal.

The Bill will proceed through Committee of the Whole House, Report Stage, and Third Reading in a single day. Committee of the Whole House (CWH) enables all MPs to take part in a Bill’s Committee Stage in the House of Commons Chamber, rather than delegating scrutiny to a smaller group of MPs in a Public Bill Committee. During CWH, MPs examine each clause and schedule of the Bill to decide whether it should “stand part of the Bill” (in other words, whether it should remain in the Bill) and vote on proposed amendments.

So far, only two amendments have been tabled. The first, put forward by Conservative backbencher Kit Malthouse MP, would give judges the power to immediately revoke a deprivation order – without waiting for an appeal to conclude – if they are satisfied that the person faces a real and substantial threat of serious harm because of the order, or if continuing the order would significantly prejudice that person’s ability to mount a defence at appeal, or if delays caused by a public authority have made the appeal process unreasonably long. The second amendment, from Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Lisa Smart MP, calls for the Government to commission an independent review of the effects of the Act.

Under the programme order agreed at Second Reading, the Committee Stage debate is limited to a maximum of two hours. Once that time is up, all the questions on clauses are expected to be put to the House. However, the House will only vote on amendments that are either tabled by a Minister or specifically selected for a vote by the most senior Deputy Speaker.

If a Bill passes through Committee of the Whole House without any amendments, it skips Report Stage and proceeds straight to Third Reading. Even if amendments are made in Committee, Report Stage only takes place if MPs table further amendments or new clauses. Under the agreed programme order, the debate on Third Reading must conclude, at the latest, three hours after the Committee Stage debate begins. This means that, at most, one hour is available for Third Reading. In practice, however, this time is reduced by votes from earlier stages, and the debate usually only features brief remarks from both frontbenches. Once Third Reading is approved, the Bill will be sent to the House of Lords for further scrutiny. (House of Commons Library briefing)

Royal Albert Hall Bill (Second Reading). This Bill, which would make reforms to the governance arrangements of the Royal Albert Hall, has now been put to the House ten times without success. On each occasion, the Bill has been scheduled during the time for unopposed private business – a short window at the start of the day, before oral questions, when private bills can proceed without debate, provided no one objects. However, Conservative MP Sir Christopher Chope has consistently tabled a motion to signal his intention to oppose the Bill, effectively blocking the Bill from progressing every time.

By blocking the Bill on multiple occasions, Sir Christopher Chope has aimed not to kill it outright, but to ensure it cannot proceed without a proper debate taking place. He has now achieved that goal. After repeated delays, the Chair of Ways and Means, Nusrat Ghani MP, who is responsible for the progress of Private Bills in the House of Commons, has exercised her power under Standing Orders to trigger a three-hour debate on the Bill. Normally such debates tale place at 19:00 on a Monday, but last Wednesday the Government put forward a motion to allow the debate to begin at any time. As a result, the debate will start either before or after 19:00, depending on when the preceding business concludes. At the end of the debate, the question on Second Reading will be put to the House and this time a single opponent will not be able to delay or block it.

For more on this procedure and the specifics of this case, see a previous edition of this Bulletin. We also explored the Royal Albert Hall Bill in depth in a recent episode of our Parliament Matters podcast.

Adjournment: The Conservative MP Aphra Brandreth has the adjournment debate, on the condition of roads in Cheshire.

Westminster Hall: MPs will debate e-petition 725716, which calls on the Government not to make changes to legislation that would allow veterans of the conflict in Northern Ireland to be prosecuted. The petition has acquired over 169,000 signatures.

The Government is currently preparing new legislation to replace the previous Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023. Key parts of that Act – including the offer of conditional immunity to those suspected of serious crimes during the Troubles – were deemed unlawful by the Court of Appeal. The court found these provisions to be incompatible with both the European Convention on Human Rights and the Windsor Framework. In response, the Government presented a proposed remedial order to Parliament, a type of legislation which enables Ministers to amend laws found to breach the European Convention. This draft order removed the sections ruled unlawful. However, the final version of the remedial order has yet to be laid before Parliament. Once it is, a 60-day scrutiny period will begin, during which the Joint Committee on Human Rights will assess and report on whether the order should be approved. It must then be debated and approved by both Houses before it can take effect.

Legislative committees: There are four delegated Legislation Committee meeting today. Each debate will last up to 90 minutes and a motion to approve each measure will then need to be put before all MPs at a later date:

  • The draft Enterprise Act 2002 (Definition of Newspaper) Order 2025, and the Enterprise Act 2002 (Amendment of Section 58 Considerations) Order 2025: These two instruments update the media mergers regime so that it covers acquisitions of online news publications and periodical news magazines, expanding beyond television, radio and print newspapers. The aim is to allow greater scrutiny of proposed takeovers which could diminish the quality of reporting or freedom of expression or lead to significant foreign state control.

  • The draft Sentencing Act 2020 (Amendment of Schedule 21) Regulations 2025: This instrument would add two new statutory aggravating factors to be considered in murder sentencing; first, if the murder was connected to the end of an intimate personal relationship with the victim, and second, if the murder involved asphyxiation.

  • The draft Warm Home Discount (Amendment) Regulations 2025: This instrument would expand the scheme under which energy suppliers provide rebates to households at risk of fuel poverty, reaching approximately 3 million additional households.

  • Motion to grant financial assistance to industry: Under Section 8 of the Industrial Development Act 1982, the Government may provide financial assistance if it believes the funding would benefit the UK economy, is in the national interest at the proposed scale, and cannot be provided through other means. For any single project receiving over £30 million, approval from the House of Commons is required. The recent practice is for the Government to table a motion outlining the proposed financial assistance, and for the House to treat the motion as a Statutory Instrument. In this case, the Government is seeking approval to provide up to £1 billion in grants by 2030, to support zero-emission vehicle manufacturers and the automotive supply chain.

Oral questions: At 14:30, Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on the threshold for VAT on imported goods; rail freight; the potential benefits of a tourism levy for coastal communities; and advertisements for less healthy foods.

Main business: Employment Rights Bill (Report, day 1). This is the first of four days of Report Stage for this legislation, which would introduce a swathe of new employment protections and procedures. This Bill underwent 11 days of scrutiny at Committee Stage – the longest of any bill this Session – reflecting both its complexity and its length, which has now doubled during the course of its parliamentary passage. (House of Lords Library briefing)

At Report Stage, the whole House debates and votes on proposed amendments. It is at Report Stage that the Government most often suffers defeats on amendments in the Lords.

The 70 pages of proposed amendments will be divided into several groups of related changes, which will then be debated in sequence. The first groups of amendments will relate primarily to the opening clauses of the Bill. These clauses introduce the proposed new rights for zero hours and agency workers, such as guaranteed hours, reasonable notice of shifts, and compensation payments for cancelled or altered shifts, as well as the new right to request flexible working and proposed reforms to statutory sick pay. As a result, these issues are expected to form the core of today’s debate.

The Government has also announced that it intends to amend the Bill to invalidate non-disclosure agreements used to silence employees who have been subject to harassment or discrimination, and to protect witnesses who support them from legal repercussions. To this end, the Business and Trade Minister, Baroness Jones of Whitchurch, has tabled a new clause. However, as this new clause will be inserted after clause 22, there is no guarantee that the House will reach that point in the Bill during this sitting.

The Government has also tabled a further 62 amendments to its own Bill. Since its introduction in the House of Commons, the Bill has grown substantially, from 149 pages at First Reading in the Commons to 299 pages by the end of Commons consideration, and now to 309 pages, with more additions expected. As we have argued before, the practice of introducing incomplete legislation and making major changes during the parliamentary process undermines effective scrutiny. Good legislative practice requires that the policy-making process be completed before drafting begins, so that key policy decisions are embedded into the Bill from the outset.

Grand Committee: Peers will debate three draft Statutory Instruments:

  • the Nuclear Installations (Compensation for Nuclear Damage) (Amendment) Regulations 2025;

  • the Contract for Difference (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 3) Regulations 2025; and

  • the Transport Act 2000 (Air Traffic Services) (Prescribed Terms) Regulations 2025.

Highlights include:

House of Commons

  • Health and Social Care Committee (14:00): West Streeting MP, the Health and Social Care Secretary, will give evidence on the 10 Year Health Plan.

  • Public Accounts Committee (15:30): The Permanent Secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, the Chief Executive of the Planning Inspectorate, and the Registrar General at the Home Office will give evidence on smarter delivery of public services.

Joint

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, Energy Security and Net Zero Ministers will face questions from MPs. Topics include the renewable energy sector, supply chains in green industries, electricity grid capacity, non-domestic energy costs, nuclear power, the Warm Homes Discount, private sector investment, and carbon capture.

Any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow.

Ten Minute Rule Motion: The Conservative MP Dame Caroline Dinenage will seek to introduce a Ten Minute Rule Bill titled the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Regulation) Bill. The Bill would make provision for the regulation of online providers of fertility services. See our Hansard Society guide for more information about the parliamentary procedure for Ten Minute Rule Bills.

Main business: Opposition Day (Conservatives). This is the ninth Opposition Day of this Session, out of the 20 that the Government is required to provide over its duration. Given that we are now more than a year into the parliamentary Session, and fewer than half of the required Opposition Days have been scheduled, it suggests that the Government intends for the Session to continue for several more months, likely into next year.

The topic for today’s debate will be chosen by the Leader of the Opposition, but it may not formally be announced until Monday evening.

Presentation of Public Petition: Liberal Democrat MP Mike Martin will present a petition on accessibility at High Brooms Station.

Adjournment: The Plaid Cymru MP Liz Saville Roberts has the adjournment debate, on local justice area reform.

Westminster Hall: There are five debates, on:

Legislative committees:

  • Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill: This Bill would introduce a revenue certainty mechanism – that is, a guaranteed price over a period – to support the production of sustainable aviation fuel, funded by a levy on suppliers of aviation fuel. Today the Committee will take oral evidence; the witnesses will have been formally agreed in advance by the Whips. (House of Commons Library briefing)

Oral questions: Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on the effectiveness of the UK’s soft power, in particular the BBC World Service, the British Council and universities; protecting the ceremonial status of Rutland’s lieutenancy in the forthcoming local government reorganisation; plans to raise taxes; and the Competition and Markets Authority’s investigation of seven major housebuilders regarding information sharing.

Main business: Renters’ Rights Bill (Report, day 3). This is the final day of Report Stage for this Bill. The remaining groups of amendments to be debated relate to:

  • the standard of proof required where a local authority imposes a financial penalty;

  • the maximum penalties that local authorities can levy;

  • whether penalties should only be applicable for persistent breaches;

  • the circumstances in which a landlord is required to be part of the landlord redress scheme;

  • the information about landlords that should be included on the proposed Private Rented Sector database;

  • whether to extend the Decent Homes Standard;

  • the use of licensing schemes to improve housing conditions;

  • whether to abolish the right-to-rent provision in the 2014 Immigration Act;

  • whether to impose any conditions that must be satisfied before the Bill can come into force; and

  • whether to create a new independent body to assess the appropriate levels of rent for different regions.

It is at Report Stage that the Government most frequently suffers defeats on amendments. It has already suffered defeats on six groups of amendments and may face more today. (House of Lords Library briefing)

Football Governance Bill (Consideration of Commons Amendments). This Bill will establish an Independent Football Regulator (IFR) to oversee financial sustainability in football clubs and across the leagues. The IFR would manage a licensing regime and monitor and enforce compliance with financial regulation, club ownership, fan engagement, and club heritage rules. The Bill also sets out a mediation process for the distribution of revenue throughout the football pyramid, with possible IFR intervention as a ‘backstop’ mechanism.

The Bill was introduced first in the House of Lords, after which it was sent to the House of Commons where the Government made several amendments to the Bill, including:

  • allowing the levy imposed on clubs by the IFR to be used to finance all of its functions, meaning that the IFR will be fully funded by the levy; and

  • amending the procedure for the IFR’s revenue distribution backstop, so that instead of choosing between the proposals offered by each league in mediation, the IFR can impose its own solution, drawing on the leagues’ proposals.

Ministers also made some technical and drafting amendments to other elements of the Bill.

Because the Commons has amended the Bill, Peers will need to consider their response to those amendments. They can either agree to the Commons amendments, disagree with them, or propose alternative amendments. If they agree to all the Commons amendments, the Bill will be sent to receive Royal Assent. If not, it will be returned to the Commons for MPs to take a view on what the Lords have proposed in response to their amendments.

Grand Committee: There are debates on three draft Statutory Instruments:

  • the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Amendment, etc.) Regulations 2025;

  • the Online Safety Super-Complaints (Eligibility and Procedural Matters) Regulations 2025; and

  • the Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order 2025. The Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order 2025 is an annual Order which is needed to renew the legal basis for the UK’s armed forces. Without it, the Armed Forces Act 2006, which underpins the terms of service and military discipline of the armed forces, would expire. The requirement for yearly renewal stems from the 1688 Bill of Rights, which established that maintaining a standing army in peacetime without Parliament’s consent is unlawful.

Highlights include:

House of Commons

  • Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (10:00): Executives from Thames Water have been recalled to give further evidence to the Committee, following earlier evidence this year. The recall comes in light of information newly disclosed to the Committee and fresh concerns about the company’s financial stability.

  • Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee (10:00): Matthew Pennycook MP, Minister for Housing and Planning, will give evidence on land value capture and delivering 1.5 million new homes.

  • Treasury Committee (10:15): The chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility will give evidence on the OBR’s recent Fiscal Risks and Sustainability Report.

  • Foreign Affairs Committee (11:00): Lord Collins of Highbury, Minister at the Foreign Office, will give evidence on the UK at the United Nations Security Council.

  • Committee on Standards (11:30): The Bar Standards Board and Solicitors Regulation Authority will give evidence on MPs’ outside employment and interests.

  • International Development Committee (14:00): The Minister for Development, Baroness Chapman of Darlington, and the Minister for Public Health, Ashley Dalton MP, will give evidence on global health challenges and the UK.

  • Home Affairs Committee (14:30): Lord Anderson, the Interim Independent Prevent Commissioner, and Robin Simcox, the Commissioner for Countering Extremism, will give evidence on combatting new forms of extremism.

  • Business and Trade Committee (14:30): Justin Madders MP, Minister for Employment Rights, Competition and Markets, Lord Willetts, the Chair of the Regulatory Innovation Office, and the heads of Ofwat, Ofgem, the Competitions and Markets Authority, the Environment Agency and the Financial Conduct Authority will give evidence on the role of regulators.

House of Lords

  • Science and Technology Committee (10:00): Lord (Patrick) Vallance of Balham, Minister of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, will give evidence on financing and scaling UK science and technology.

  • Industry and Regulators Committee (10:00): Dame Judith Hackitt, whose independent review led to the establishment of the regulatory framework overseen by the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), will give evidence on the BSR.

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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Questions and statements: At 11:30, Wales Office Ministers will face questions from MPs. Topics include nuclear power in Wales, the impact of the Spending Review, the Industrial Strategy, rail connectivity between north Wales and the north of England, the classification of the Oxford to Cambridge rail line as an England and Wales project, family farms in Wales, offshore wind, and defence spending in Wales.

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 Danny Beales will seek to introduce a Ten Minute Rule Bill titled the Managing Agents (Regulation) Bill. This would establish an independent regulator of managing agents, require managing agents to comply with a code of practice, and establish a licensing scheme for managing agents.

Main business: Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill (Second Reading). This Bill, proposed by the Law Commission, would formally establish a third category of personal property in law – distinct from physical assets and rights-based assets such as debts and securities – into which crypto-tokens and similar digital assets could fall. Law Commission bills are typically uncontroversial; as a result, the Standing Orders set out that such bills should by default have their Second Reading in a Second Reading Committee rather than in the House of Commons chamber. However, last week the Government put forward a motion to dispense with that Standing Order so that the Second Reading could take place in the Chamber.

Motion relating to the Register of Interests of Members’ Staff. This motion, tabled by the Leader of the House, Lucy Powell MP, would implement the recommendations of a recent report by the Committee on Standards concerning Members’ staff. At present, only MPs staff with security passes granting them access to the parliamentary estate are obliged to register certain interests, gifts or benefits related to their work. However, this leaves a significant gap: of the 4,202 MPs staff with parliamentary email accounts, only around 2,000 have security passes, meaning most staff are not covered by the current rules. The Committee recommended extending the registration requirement to register the interests of all MPs’ staff who have a parliamentary network account. The Government has accepted this recommendation and has therefore tabled this motion. (House of Commons Library Debate Pack)

The rest of the day will be taken up by a general debate on giving every child the best start in life. (House of Commons Library Debate Pack)

Presentation of Public Petitions: The Liberal Democrat MP Freddie van Mierlo will present a petition in relation to the Horspath Outreach Post Office.

Adjournment: The Labour MP Uma Kumaran has the adjournment debate, on commemorating the women of the Matchgirls’ strike in 1888.

Westminster Hall: There are five debates, on:

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

Oral questions: At 15:00, Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on foreign ownership of newspapers; female genital mutilation; and fines unpaid by diplomats. The topic of a fourth question will be decided by a ballot drawn at lunchtime on Monday 14 July.

Main business: Employment Rights Bill (Report, day 2). This is the second of four days of Report Stage for the Employment Rights Bill. At today’s sitting, Peers will debate several groups of amendments, starting at the point reached at the conclusion of Monday’s proceedings. (House of Lords Library briefing)

Grand Committee: Peers will debate three draft Statutory Instruments:

  • the Electricity Capacity (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2025;

  • the Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) (Amendment) Order 2025; and

  • the Legislative Reform (Disclosure of Adult Social Care Data) Order 2025: This draft Legislative Reform Order (LRO) will enable the National Fraud Initiative (NFI), a team within the Cabinet Office’s Public Sector Fraud Authority, to use adult social care data held by local authorities as part of its data matching activities to identify and prevent fraud and error in the adult social care system. LROs are a rare type of Statutory Instrument used to remove or reduce regulatory burdens, or change the way in which regulatory functions are carried out. They are subject to an enhanced parliamentary procedure – the super-affirmative procedure – which is the most rigorous level of scrutiny currently applied to delegated legislation. When Ministers lay a draft LRO before Parliament, they must also lay an explanatory statement setting out which level of parliamentary scrutiny they believe should apply. A select committee in each House then has 30 days to consider the instrument and if appropriate recommend that it be upgraded to a higher scrutiny procedure. There are three levels of scrutiny procedure available, ranked from lowest to highest: (i) the negative procedure – the LRO becomes law automatically when the Minister makes (signs) it, unless either House objects within 40 days; (ii) the affirmative procedure – the LRO requires the approval of both Houses before it can become law; or (iii) the super-affirmative procedure – both Houses have 60 days to consider the draft proposal and recommend changes, after which the Minister must decide whether to make the changes and the LRO must be approved under the affirmative procedure. In this case, the Minister recommended that the LRO be subject to the affirmative procedure. Neither the House of Commons Business and Trade Committee (BTC) nor the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee (DPRRC) recommended that it be upgraded to the super-affirmative procedure in their respective reports (BTC Report / DPRRC Report). A Minister will therefore be able to make the LRO once both Houses have debated and approved it.

Highlights include:

House of Commons

  • Environmental Audit Committee (09:15): Mike Kane MP, Minister for Aviation, Maritime and Security, will give evidence on airport expansion and climate and nature targets.

  • Transport Committee (09:15): Lord Hendy, Minister for Rail, will give evidence on ending boom and bust in rail investment pipelines.

  • Work and Pensions Committee (09:30): Liz Kendall MP, Work and Pensions Secretary, will give evidence on the work of her Department. The Committee has said that they are likely to ask about the consequences of changes to the Universal Credit Bill.

  • Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (10:00): The Leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell MP, and the Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, Jesse Norman MP, will give evidence on Ministerial Statements and the Ministerial Code. This inquiry was launched at the request of the Speaker, following concerns that Ministers are breaching the Ministerial Code by announcing major policy decisions to the media before informing the House.

  • Foreign Affairs Committee (10:00): David Lammy MP, the Foreign Secretary, will give evidence on the development work of the FCDO.

  • Culture, Media and Sport Committee (10:00): Stephanie Peacock MP, Minister for Sport, Media, Civil Society and Youth, and Catherine McKinnell MP, Minister for School Standards, will give evidence on community and school sport.

  • Welsh Affairs Committee (14:30): Daniel Zeichner MP, Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs, will give evidence on challenges and opportunities for farming in Wales in 2025.

  • Energy Security and Net Zero Committee (15:00): The Committee will hold a pre-appointment hearing with Nigel Topping, the Government’s preferred candidate for chair of the Climate Change Committee (CCC). This is an independent statutory body established under the Climate Change Act 2008 to advise the Government on emissions targets and to report on progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

House of Lords

  • Financial Services Regulation Committee (10:15): The Chief Executive and other senior officials at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will give evidence on the FCA’s Five-Year Strategy.

  • Constitution Committee (10:30): The Master of the Rolls, Sir Geoffrey Vos, who is the President of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, will give evidence on the rule of law.

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

Questions and statements: At 09:30, Business and Trade Ministers will face questions from MPs. Topics include cycle manufacturers, parental leave, high street businesses, the Industrial Strategy, the export of F-35 components to Israel, compensation for postmasters, the implementation of trade agreements, the hospitality sector, and small and medium sized enterprises.

Any Urgent Questions will follow.

The Leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, will present her weekly Business Statement, setting out the business in the House for next week and possibly for the first week in September when the House returns after the Summer recess. Any other Ministerial Statements will follow.

Select Committee Statement: Dame Chi Onwurah MP, chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, will make a statement drawing attention to the committee’s recent report, Social Media, Misinformation and Harmful Algorithms.

Main business: There will be two general debates, the subjects of which were chosen by the Backbench Business Committee following applications from individual MPs:

Global Plastics Treaty (Alistair Carmichael, Liberal Democrat): In his application, Carmichael argued that it was important for a debate to take place in advance of the next round of negotiations on the treaty in August.

Ageing community and end of life care (Jim Shannon, DUP): In his application, Shannon highlighted that “palliative care and hospice care have become part of the debate” on assisted dying. He also highlighted that hospices are “grappling with funding shortages, rising demand and workforce pressures”.

Adjournment: The Conservative MP Danny Kruger has the adjournment debate, on the future of the Church of England.

Westminster Hall: There are two debates today, on:

Legislative committees:

  • Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill: As outlined in relation to Tuesday’s business above, this Bill would introduce a revenue certainty mechanism to support the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), funded by a levy on suppliers of SAF. Today the Bill begins its detailed clause-by-clause scrutiny, building on the oral evidence taken on Tuesday. The first clauses to be debated relate to the revenue certainty contracts that would be agreed with producers of SAF. (House of Commons Library briefing)

Oral questions: Peers will begin the day at 11:00 by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on amendments to the European Convention on Human Rights; the system of issuing rail tickets; and debt in the developing world. The topic of a fourth question will be decided by a ballot drawn at lunchtime on Tuesday 15 July.

Main business: Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Committee, day 1). The Government’s planning reform legislation begins its Lords Committee Stage today, with eight days currently scheduled by the Government Whips. While Committee Stage is scheduled to conclude on Wednesday 17 September, this is by no means guaranteed. Committee Stages for several other Government bills this session have overrun, often due to large numbers of amendments, the degrouping and splitting of amendments into smaller groups, and lengthy speeches. For example, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill originally had seven days set aside for its Committee Stage; it is now expected to take at least 13 days.

Peers will examine the Bill clause by clause and consider proposed amendments. Related amendments will be grouped together for debate, and the debate will follow the order in which these groups correspond to the structure of the Bill, starting with those relating to the earliest clauses. As a result, the initial debates will focus primarily on the early clauses of the Bill relating to the approval process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects. (House of Lords Library briefing)

Grand Committee: There will be four questions for short debate (QSD), which are general debates that come in the form of a question to a Minister. QSDs are drawn from a ballot every five sitting weeks. The first four entries drawn from the ballot are debated in Grand Committee on a Thursday, with the other entries appearing on a supplementary list in the order they were drawn. Questions on the supplementary list can be taken in the Chamber as short debates between items of business, either in the lunch break, dinner break, or as the last business of the day. Today’s topics are the first four entries that were drawn in the ballot on Wednesday 2 July, and each is time-limited to one hour:

  • Plans to create a national accident prevention strategy, as set out in the report by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, Safer Lives, Stronger Nation: Our Call for a National Accident Prevention Strategy. (House of Lords Library briefing)

  • The ratio of medical training posts in each specialty relative to the number of foundation year medical students choosing that specialty. (House of Lords Library briefing)

  • The assessment made of the number of people arrested daily for non-threatening, online communication offences, and the assessment made of the implications of such arrests for freedom of speech.

  • Representations made to the governments of India and Pakistan to bring about peace between the two countries, including with regard to Kashmir and the suspension of the Indus Water Treaty.

Highlights include:

House of Commons

  • Public Accounts Committee (10:00): The Permanent Secretary and other senior officials at the Department for Transport will give evidence on local bus services in England. The session builds on a recent National Audit Office report which concluded that successive governments “have aimed to improve bus services for passengers and attract more people to use buses”, but “despite significant investment from government, these outcomes are not yet being achieved”.

House of Lords

  • Built Environment Committee (10:00): Matthew Pennycook MP, the Minister for Housing and Planning, will give evidence on new towns.

  • Social Mobility Policy Committee (10:05): Alison McGovern MP, Minister for Employment, and Baroness Smith of Malvern, Minister for Skills, 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.

The House will not be sitting.

Main business: There will be a general debate on the Strategic Defence Review. It will be led by the co-author of the Review, the former NATO Secretary General and Defence Secretary, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, as well as the Minister for Defence, Lord Coaker. (House of Lords Library briefing)

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News / One year on: How is Parliament performing? - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 100

In our 100th episode, we take stock of Parliament one year after the 2024 general election. With a fractured opposition, a dominant Labour government, and a House of Commons still governed by rules designed for a two-party system, how well is this new Parliament really functioning? Please help us by completing our Listener Survey. It will only take a few minutes.

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