Questions and statements: At 14:30, Ministers from the Department for Work and Pensions will answer questions. MPs are particularly focused on Pension Credit uptake (with five questions on that issue alone). This issue has gained prominence following recent changes to the Winter Fuel Payment, which now restrict eligibility to pensioners receiving Pension Credit or certain other means-tested benefits. Other questions focus on child and pensioner poverty. Six of the 23 questions on the Order Paper are identical to at least one other, suggesting co-ordination by party Whips or the Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, as observed in previous Bulletins.

Any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow.

Main business: General debate on rural affairs. Expect some opposition MPs to use the debate as an opportunity to discuss the Government’s planned reduction in agricultural property relief from inheritance tax.

Adjournment: The Conservative MP Aphra Brandreth has the adjournment debate on improving mental health in farming and agricultural communities.

House of Lords: The main business is a debate on the Budget, led by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Lord Livermore.

There are also five Statutory Instruments (SIs) to be debated in Grand Committee, the House’s secondary debating chamber. One of these – the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2024 – is controversial and has been drawn to the special attention of the House by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (SLSC). The Order is intended to rectify a legislative anomaly whereby fees have been charged without the legal authority to do so.

The Immigration Rules require visa applicants to demonstrate proficiency in English, and in some cases, they must also obtain verification that their qualification meets the required standard. This verification is acquired through a third-party supplier, which charges applicants a fee for the service. The Home Office has now identified that both the verification service and the fees charged by this supplier are mandatory, and therefore the fees must be provided for in legislation. This Order provides the necessary legislative basis.

However, this means that these fees have been charged unlawfully for years. And the SLSC notes that even after recognising this legal gap, visa applicants are continuing to be charged these fees to ensure “consistency” with past (unlawful) practice. The SLSC has strongly criticised the Government’s lack of clarity on how this oversight occurred, the steps it is taking to remedy it, potential compensation for affected applicants and the timeline for the review process. It notes that “the sums of public money at stake appear to be large”. The Committee has also asked that the Order’s Explanatory Memorandum be revised to address the deficiencies in the information provided. The Home Office, however, has thus far declined to do so.

A second SI being debated in Grand Committee – the Radio Equipment (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2024 – is discussed below, since MPs are also debating the SI on Tuesday.

KEEP UP WITH LEGISLATIVE AND REGULATORY CHANGES Our Hansard Society Statutory Instrument Tracker® is a powerful online tool that delivers daily updates on Statutory Instruments (SIs), including consultations and every stage of an SIs journey through Parliament. With the SI Tracker®, you can customise alerts to fit your specific policy interests and compliance priorities. Subscribing to our SI Tracker® app helps you save time and reduce risk, keeping you fully informed about the latest legislative developments so you can respond swiftly to new statutory requirements and policy changes.

Questions and statements: At 11:30, Ministers from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will face questions from MPs. Topics include the introduction of a warm homes plan, progress towards clean energy by 2030, and job creation in renewable energy. Eight of the 25 questions on the Order Paper are duplicates of at least one other. Any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow.

Ten-Minute Rule Motion: The Labour MP Fabian Hamilton will present a Ten-Minute Rule Bill titled the Powers of Attorney Bill which he pledged to introduce prior to the general election. The Bill seeks to tackle abuse of Lasting Power of Attorney agreements by placing new duties on banks and the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) among other provisions. See our Hansard Society guide for more information about the parliamentary procedure for Ten Minute Rule Bills.

Main business: The main business is Committee of the Whole House (meaning the House will form itself into a committee of all its members and take committee stage in the Chamber) and Remaining Stages of the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill, with 21 pages of amendments tabled for consideration in Committee. Among these, Conservative MP Sir Gavin Williamson has tabled several amendments, including a mandatory retirement age of 80 for Peers and a minimum participation requirement, both of which were pledges in the Labour manifesto. If his amendments are selected (which is not assured), Sir Gavin will force Labour MPs into a politically difficult position: if they oppose his proposals they will do so in contradiction of their own manifesto pledges.

The amendment of Sir Gavin’s that commands greatest support, signed (at the time of writing) by 18 MPs, seeks to remove the Lords Spiritual – the Church of England bishops – from the House of Lords. This amendment has some cross-party support: Labour’s Graham Stringer, the SNP’s Pete Wishart and Independent MP John McDonnell have all signed the amendment as have three Reform UK members. Conservative MP Sir Ashley Fox has also tabled an amendment requiring the Government to publish a draft Bill that would remove the Bishops from the House of Lords and reduce its membership to less than 650 before the Act – and therefore the removal of the hereditary Peers – can come into force.

The Liberal Democrats have tabled amendments to require the Government to consult on a directly elected House of Lords with a view to introducing a draft bill, and to prohibit life peerages being awarded if the House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC) recommends against it. (For transparency, we should declare that Baroness Taylor of Bolton, who serves as the Chair of the Hansard Society Board of Trustees, is also a member of HOLAC.)

Amendments have also been tabled by the SNP to prevent life peerages being awarded unless HOLAC confirms that the nominee meets propriety standards; to expel Peers who have made donations to a political party since 2001 with an aggregate value of over £11,180; to exclude, and expel, any Peers who have been MPs in the current or previous Parliament (or in the last five years); to impose a duty on the Government to prepare draft legislation to replace the Lords with an elected upper house; and to abolish the House of Lords.

Statutory Instruments: The draft Radio Equipment (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2024 will be debated in a Delegated Legislation Committee this afternoon. Despite the title, these regulations primarily address chargers for electronic devices rather than radio equipment. In 2022 the EU adopted the Common Charger Directive which mandates the use of USB-C chargers for mobile phones and other portable electronic devices sold in the EU from December 2024. This Directive amended the 2014 Radio Equipment Directive, which the UK had already incorporated into domestic law in 2017, when it was an EU member, hence the “radio equipment” reference in the legislation’s title.

Under the Windsor Framework, certain EU laws listed in Annex 2 must still apply in Northern Ireland. Because the Common Charger Directive is one of these, the new requirement for USB-C chargers will be implemented in Northern Ireland through these new regulations as of December 28, 2024.

The Government is currently consulting on a UK-wide common charging solution for electronic devices, similar to the EU’s Common Charger Directive. For this UK-wide solution, the Government plans to use powers in the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill currently making its way through Parliament. In contrast, for Northern Ireland, the government has used powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Eurosceptic MPs argue that the plans to introduce a common charger across the UK, with initial adoption in Northern Ireland, show how the Windsor Framework is leading to an alignment with EU rules “through the back door”. They say that Northern Ireland is being used by the EU – as the “tail wagging the dog”– to create UK-wide regulation.

Adjournment: The Labour MP Julie Minns has the adjournment debate on the Pubs Code and the provision of guest beers.

Westminster Hall: There are five Westminster Hall debates: on future transport infrastructure projects and the Elizabeth line; breast cancer in younger women; NHS dentistry in the South West; tackling image-based abuse; and school transport in Northumberland.

House of Lords: Two debates dominate business today.

Third Reading of the Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill, which makes provision to reform the UK’s regime for handling bank failures, as explained in a previous edition of the Bulletin.

A general debate on House of Lords reform, led by the Leader of the House of Lords, Baroness Smith of Basildon. With only one element of the Government’s plans for Lords reform presented to the House so far – the abolition of hereditary Peers – the debate offers a chance to discuss Labour's other manifesto promises, such as a mandatory retirement age of 80 and reforms to the appointment procedure for new Peers.

Select Committee highlights include:

• Science, Innovation and Technology Committee (09:30): Representatives from universities and research institutions will discuss the implications of the recent Budget on academic and research funding.

• Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee (10:00): Witnesses, including campaigners, academics, and local government representatives, will address issues related to rough sleeping. One of the notable witnesses is Lord Bird, co-founder of The Big Issue.

• International Development Committee (14:00): MPs will hear from those with direct experience working in Gaza, including a transplant surgery specialist and representatives from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Human Rights Watch, Medical Aid for Palestinians, and UNRWA, the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees and which was recently banned by Israel.

• Science and Technology Committee (House of Lords) (10:15): The Chair and Chief Executive of the Government’s new research funding agency – ARIA (the Advanced Research and Invention Agency) – will give evidence to a parliamentary select committee for the first time since the body was set up last year. The Agency – reportedly a priority project of Dominic Cummings during his time in Downing Street – was founded to fund high-risk, high-reward scientific research.

Holocaust Memorial Bill Select Committee (House of Lords) (10:30 and 14:00): A hybrid bill affecting both public and private interests, the Holocaust Memorial Bill seeks to remove planning restrictions to allow the construction of a Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Victoria Tower Gardens, adjacent to the Palace of Westminster. The original planning process was taken to judicial review by campaigners fighting to save the Gardens. The Government lost because the proposed development was found to contravene the provisions of the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900 which created the present Gardens. This legislation required the Gardens to be maintained as a public garden. Having lost in court Ministers (in the previous Government) decided to bring in legislation to disapply the 1900 Act and thereby enable the development to go ahead.

Hybrid bills like this one are subject to an extra legislative stage where a special select committee hears from petitioners with vested interests or concerns. The high volume of petitions can prolong a laborious process, as the Hansard Society highlighted last year in relation to the HS2 hybrid bill. For an explainer on the hybrid bill procedure and the background to the Holocaust Memorial Bill we also have an excellent blog by former parliamentary clerk and Hansard Society member Paul Evans. Today’s petitioners include five Peers and former Father of the House Sir Peter Bottomley, a vocal critic of the project, with additional testimonies from four more Peers scheduled for Wednesday. Opinion about the proposals – including in the Jewish community – is deeply split. Supporters contend that the best location for the Memorial is next to Parliament where visitors can reflect on what can happen when democracy is subverted. Others argue – including some Holocaust survivors themselves – that the Memorial would be better presented at a more suitable location such as a dedicated site at the Imperial War Museum where specialist galleries commemorate the Holocaust.

A summary of Wednesday's business continues below!

Questions and statements: At 11:30, Women and Equalities Ministers will respond to questions from MPs. A significant focus of the questions is on violence against women and girls, with six questions in total on that topic (four of which are duplicates). In total six of the 15 questions on the Order Paper are duplicates of at least one other.

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

Ten-Minute Rule Motion: The Labour MP Bambos Charalambous will present a Ten-Minute Rule Bill titled Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill.

Main business: There will be debates and motions to approve five Statutory Instruments.

The draft Voter Identification (Amendment of List of Specified Documents) Regulations 2024 will add the HM Armed Forces Veteran Card to the list of accepted forms of photo ID that can be used when voting. This is the first such addition to the list since voter ID requirements were introduced in the Elections Act 2022. This change aligns with the Labour Party manifesto commitment to “address the inconsistencies in voter ID rules that prevent legitimate voters from voting. For example, in the case of HM Armed Forces Veteran Cards.”

The draft Environmental Protection (Single-use Vapes) (England) Regulations 2024 will prohibit the supply of single-use or disposable vapes. The Explanatory Memorandum states that an estimated 5 million single-use vapes are either littered or thrown away every week in the UK. The SI will come into force on 1 June 2025 to give businesses time to run down stocks.

The final debate concerns motions to approve three related draft SIs:

• the Export and Investment Guarantees (Limit on Exports and Insurance Commitments) Order 2024;

• the Export and Investment Guarantees (Limit on Exports and Insurance Commitments) (No. 2) Order 2024; and

• the Export and Investment Guarantees (Limit on Exports and Insurance Commitments) (No. 3) Order 2024.

The Export and Investment Guarantees Act 1991 allows the Secretary of State, through UK Export Finance, to help UK companies win export contracts by offering more attractive financing terms to buyers. The Act sets a cap on the total aggregate amount of such commitments at 67.7 billion ‘special drawing rights’ (SDRs – a form of international reserve asset created by the International Monetary Fund). While the Act enables the Secretary of State to raise this limit via delegated (also known as secondary or subordinate) legislation, each increase is restricted to 5 billion SDRs. The Government is therefore using three separate Orders to increase the limit by 15 billion, raising the cap to 82.7 billion SDRs in total. However, these Orders will be made in a staggered sequence, with each coming into effect on different dates. This approach circumvents the statutory constraints while progressively expanding UK Export Finance’s capacity to support UK exporters.

Select Committee nominations: The Order Paper lists several motions to appoint new members to House of Commons Select Committees.

• Backbench Business Committee: Jess Brown-Fuller MP of the Liberal Democrats has been nominated to the Committee of backbenchers that helps set the parliamentary agenda.

• Joint Committee on National Security Strategy: Mike Martin and Edward Morello, also from the Liberal Democrats, have been nominated as two of the House of Commons members of this Committee which brings together members from both Houses to scrutinise government decisions on national security. The Lords has already appointed ten members, so these Commons nominations mark a step toward completing the Committee.

• Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR): Four Labour MPs have been nominated to this influential body that reviews human rights issues, including the compatibility of Government bills with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), common law, and other international standards. The JCHR also examines Government responses to court judgments on human rights matters, especially when legislation may need amendment following a court’s declaration of incompatibility with the ECHR. Further membership nominations from the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties are anticipated. The House of Lords has already appointed its five representatives to the JCHR.

Adjournment: Labour MP Chris Webb has the adjournment debate on infant formula regulations.

Westminster Hall: There are five Westminster Hall debates: on police use of live facial recognition technology; broadband in rural areas; tackling barriers to educational opportunities; kinship carers; and family and work visas.

House of Lords: Today’s main business is the Third Reading of the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill and the Second Reading of the Football Governance Bill:

The Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill aims to bring passenger railway operators into public ownership as their franchises expire. Unlike in the House of Commons, Peers may propose amendments at Third Reading in the House of Lords but only for “tidying up” the bill’s language or addressing minor technicalities. If Peers pass the bill today, it will return to the House of Commons for MPs to consider any amendments made by the Lords in the process known as ‘ping pong’.

So far, three key amendments have been added. Two of the amendments were opposed by the Government but supported by a large number of Conservative peers. It is likely that the Government will therefore seek to remove these two amendments when the Bill returns to the Commons.

• Purpose clause: this new clause clarifies that the Act’s primary goal is to improve railway service performance, requiring the Secretary of State to consider this objective when making decisions.

• Performance ranking requirement: this amendment mandates that the Secretary of State prioritise public ownership of poorly performing franchises, taking the lowest-ranked operators into public ownership first.

The third amendment is supported by the Government.

• Public sector equality duty: this amendment clarifies that publicly owned train companies will be subject to the public sector equality duty under the Equality Act 2010.

The Football Governance Bill is a revised version of a bill by the same name introduced by the previous Government. Ministers have published a factsheet outlining the changes that have now been made to the original Bill. The legislation 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.

Select Committees: Two Cabinet Ministers will appear on the Commons committee corridor today to talk about the work of their departments:

Transport Secretary Louise Haigh will appear alongside the Department’s Permanent Secretary and Second Permanent Secretary at the Transport Committee (09:15); and

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall will appear alongside the Department’s Permanent Secretary at the Work and Pensions Committee (09:30).

Questions and statements: At 11:30am, Ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) will face questions from MPs. Topics covered include fly-tipping and pollution in waterways. Only four of the 18 questions on the Order Paper are duplicates of at least one other question.

The Solicitor General will then face questions from MPs on behalf of the Government’s law officers (as the Solicitor General is deputy to the Attorney General, who currently sits in the House of Lords). The subjects to be covered include prosecution rates for violence against women and girls, Covid-19 related fraud, economic crime, and street crime. Nine out of the 12 questions are duplicates of at least one other question.

Any Urgent Questions will follow.

The Leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, will then give her weekly Business Statement, setting out the business in the House for the coming week. Any other Ministerial Statements will follow.

Main business: It has been rare in recent years for the House to consider legislation on a Thursday but today the Government has scheduled the Second Reading of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill. As explained in a previous edition of the Bulletin, this Bill would prolong the current practice of prioritising the appointment of female bishops to the House of Lords whenever a vacancy arises among the Lords Spiritual (the Church of England bishops with a right to sit in the House of Lords). The Bill was previously introduced in the House of Lords, where it passed without amendment.

Adjournment: The Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park, Sarah Olney, has the adjournment debate on the impact of aircraft noise on local communities. Olney’s constituency sits beneath several flight paths to and from Heathrow Airport.

Westminster Hall: There is one Westminster Hall debate today, on respiratory health.

House of Lords: The day is taken up by three backbench debates:

• on the cost of renewable energy and its effect on energy costs in the United Kingdom, led by Lord Frost, the former chief Brexit negotiator;

• on the impact of the Budget on arts, heritage and cultural organisations; and

• on the findings and recommendations of the Universities UK report, Opportunity, growth and partnership: a blueprint for change, published on 30 September.

House of Commons: The House of Commons will not be sitting.

House of Lords: Private Members’ Bill Friday will see debates on six Private Members’ Bills (PMBs):

• Third Reading of the Support for Infants and Parents etc (Information) Bill

• Third Reading of the Education (Values of British Citizenship) Bill

• Second Reading of the Imprisonment for Public Protection (Re-sentencing) Bill

• Second Reading of the Women, Peace and Security Bill

• Second Reading of the Home School Education Registration and Support Bill

• Second Reading of the Listed Investment Companies (Classification etc) Bill

Our Hansard Society procedural guide explains the legislative stages for PMBs in the House of Lords. Without Government support, these bills very rarely make it onto the statute book. For a Lords PMB to progress, it must not only pass all stages in the Lords, but also secure an MP in the House of Commons to take up its cause. Once in the Commons, however, it faces another obstacle: it starts at the back of the queue for debate on designated PMB Fridays, of which there are only 13 per parliamentary session. PMBs originating in the Commons have priority, and given the limited time, many Lords PMBs are at risk of not completing all the required stages in the Commons, effectively stalling their legislative journey.

The Hansard Society is a charity. If you find this Parliament Matters Bulletin useful, especially for your work, please consider donating the price of a cup of coffee to help cover the research and production costs. Your small, regular donation will fuel our ability to keep you and others up-to-date on the issues that matter in our Parliament.