Questions and statements: At 11:30, Health and Social Care Ministers will face questions from MPs. Questions on the Order Paper concern access to GP appointments primary care services, NHS waiting times, the effect of the National Insurance increase on social care providers and hospices, the impact of Winter Fuel Payment means-testing on NHS capacity, the state of mental health services, and efforts to shift care from hospitals to community-based settings.

Any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow.

Ten Minute Rule Motion: Labour MP Alex McIntyre will introduce a Ten Minute Rule Bill titled the Domestic Abuse (Safe Leave) Bill. The Bill seeks to establish an entitlement to paid safe leave for victims of domestic abuse. See our Hansard Society guide for more information about the parliamentary procedure for Ten Minute Rule Bills.

Main business: Crown Estate Bill [Lords] (Second Reading). This Bill, which has already been considered by the House of Lords, seeks to expand the borrowing and investment powers of the Crown Estate. During its passage through the House of Lords the Government suffered a defeat on a Conservative amendment requiring the Crown Estate Commissioners to assess the environmental impact and animal welfare standards of salmon farms operating on Crown Estate properties when carrying out their functions under the Act.

Public Bill Committees: Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Oral Evidence). Employment Rights Bill.

Adjournment: Labour MP Andy MacNae has the adjournment debate on prevention-based road safety and community involvement.

Westminster Hall: There are five debates, on pay gaps in the workplace; national resilience and preparedness; the fiscal impact of the Autumn Budget 2024; Government support for town centres; and the potential impact of changes to employers’ National Insurance contributions on the charity sector.

Oral questions: Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on the obstacles presented by industry to delivering policies to prevent obesity; safeguards to protect pedestrians and disabled people from electric scooters and bicycles; the 75th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights; and restricting the impact of foreign-owned social media companies upon UK democratic politics and public order.

Main business: Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill (Second Reading). This legislation (popularly known as ‘Martyn’s Law’) seeks to strengthen security measures at venues across the UK to protect against the threat of terrorism following the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing. The Bill was first introduced in draft form in 2023, formally presented to Parliament in September 2024, and has since passed through all its stages in the House of Commons.

Highlights include:

House of Commons

• Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (10:00): The Chair and Chief Executive at the Electoral Commission will give evidence as part of the Committee’s review of the 2024 general election.

• Education Committee (10:00): The Chief Inspector at Ofsted will give evidence on the work of Ofsted.

• International Development Committee (14:00): The Minister for Development, Anneliese Dodds MP, and the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) will give evidence on the development work of the FCDO.

• Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee (14:30): The Deputy Prime Minister and Communities Secretary, Angela Rayner MP, and the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) will give evidence on the work of the department.

• Business and Trade Committee (14:30): Senior representatives from the retail sector, including McDonalds, Tesco, the British Retail Consortium, and fashion retailers SHEIN and Temu, will give evidence on the Employment Rights Bill. The Committee will also hear from the UK’s Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner and a senior labour market enforcement official from the Department for Business and Trade.

House of Lords

• Communications and Digital Committee (14:30): The CEO of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the Senior Director of the CMA’s Digital Markets Unit will give evidence on the work of the Authority.

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

A summary of Wednesday's business continues below!

This section was amended to provide details about the reasoned amendment to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Questions and statements: At 11:30, Science, Innovation and Technology Ministers will face questions from MPs. Questions on the Order Paper concern measures to increase levels of innovation, the role of technology in the NHS and other public services, the impact of the National Insurance rise on the science and technology sectors, digital exclusion and broadband coverage, and support for university research.

Any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow.

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

Ten Minute Rule Motion: Reform Party MP Rupert Lowe will introduce a Ten Minute Rule Bill titled the Quantitative Easing (Prohibition) Bill. The Bill would prohibit the use of quantitative easing and prevent the Government from indemnifying losses arising from quantitative easing operations. See our Hansard Society guide for more information about the parliamentary procedure for Ten Minute Rule Bills.

Main business: Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second Reading). MPs will debate the Government’s education reform bill for the first time. The Bill’s provisions fall into two main areas: children’s social care; and schools. Key measures include:

1. Bringing academies in line with other state schools, by requiring new teachers to have qualified teacher status, extending the national pay and conditions framework to teachers in academies, and requiring academies to teach the national curriculum.

2. Giving councils the power to direct academies to admit an individual child who cannot be admitted to any other nearby school.

3. Repealing the duty to convert schools with poor Ofsted ratings into academies.

4. Introducing a compulsory Children Not in School register in every local authority.

5. Banning schools from requiring more than three branded uniform items.

6. Introducing statutory timeframes for issuing school attendance orders and making it an offence for parents to withdraw children who are subject to school attendance orders.

7. Introducing new powers to inspect and seize evidence from suspected illegal schools.

8. Repealing the “free school presumption” requiring councils to first seek to open an academy before opening a school of its own.

9. Introducing a power to cap the profits made by children’s social care providers.

10. Mandating local authorities to offer family group decision making, bringing extended family members together before a child enters social care.

11. Creating a unique identity number for children across services, similar to the National Insurance number for adults.

The Conservatives have tabled a 'reasoned amendment' to the Second Reading motion. The amendment focuses primarily on the Bill itself, and particularly on the removal of certain freedoms from academies. Notably, the final sentence of the amendment "calls upon the Government to develop new legislative proposals for children’s wellbeing including establishing a national statutory inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation, focused on grooming gangs." A reasoned amendment does not amend the Bill or create any new legal obligations, such as to set up a statutory inquiry. Instead, reasoned amendments offer a way of rejecting the Bill entirely, while giving reasons for doing so.

Adjournment: Conservative MP Sir David Davis has the adjournment debate on the role of expert witnesses and the trial of Lucy Letby. Sir David has criticised Letby’s conviction and has called on the Criminal Cases Review Commission to review the case and refer it back to the courts for a retrial. He argues that “a retrial with proper experts would come to a different conclusion”.

Westminster Hall: There are five debates, on social housing tenants and antisocial behaviour; decarbonising homes and heat batteries; transport links between Scotland and the rest of the UK; welfare for children and young people with cancer; and the provision of playgrounds by local authorities.

Oral questions: Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on guidance relating to single-sex provision for NHS staff and patients; intercity train disruptions expected to be caused by the construction of the new Great Western Railway station at Old Oak Common; and freedom of speech in the cultural sector. The topic of a fourth question will be decided by a ballot drawn at lunchtime on Monday 6 January.

Main business: Peers will be asked to approve a motion to dispense with the normal rule that no two stages of a Bill be taken on one day, so that the Financial Assistance to Ukraine Bill can go through all its Lords stages from Second to Third Reading on Wednesday 15 January.

The Speaker of the House of Commons has certified the Bill as a ‘money bill’, which means that the House of Lords’ ability to amend it is restricted under the provisions of the Parliament Act.

The House will then be asked to approve motions relating to reports and recommendations from the Conduct Committee. These motions – tabled in the name of the Committee’s chair, Baroness Manningham-Buller, the former Head of MI5 – will be decided without debate as required by Standing Order 68 concerning reports from the Conduct Committee arising from investigations under the House’s Code of Conduct. The motions concern the conduct of:

• Baroness Meyer, a Conservative Peer, who was accused of making an offensive racial remark and for touching an MP’s hair without permission. The Committee has recommended that she be suspended from the House for a period of three weeks. Lord Pearson of Rannoch has tabled an amendment proposing that the House decline to approve the Conduct Committee’s report.

• Lord Stone of Blackheath, a former Labour Peer, who was accused of bullying parliamentary security staff. The Committee has recommended that he be suspended from the House for a period of six months.

The main legislative business is the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill (Second Reading). The Bill introduces measures to simplify the process for local transport authorities (LTAs) who wish to pursue bus franchising and to enable LTAs to establish new local authority bus companies. It will also devolve grant-making powers to LTAs and place a duty on them to actively consider the provision of local bus services deemed socially necessary, to reduce the use of new non-zero emission buses, and to deliver a more accessible and inclusive bus network.

Highlights include:

House of Commons

• Work and Pensions Committee (9:30): Representatives of charities including Women’s Aid, Mind, the National Autistic Society, and the Child Poverty Action Group, as well as officials from the Department for Work and Pensions, will give evidence on safeguarding vulnerable claimants.

• Health and Social Care Committee (9:30): Sir Andrew Dilnot, who chaired the Dilnot Commission on fairer funding for social care which reported in July 2011, will give evidence to the Committee as part of its new inquiry ‘Adult Social Care Reform: The Cost of Inaction’. The Committee’s chair, Layla Moran MP, spoke about her plans for an inquiry into the costs of inaction on social care reform in a recent episode of the Hansard Society’s Parliament Matters podcast. This inquiry gains added significance following Wes Streeting’s recent announcement of a new review into social care to be chaired by Baroness Casey of Blackstock (Louise Casey).

• Women and Equalities Committee (14:20): Dame Sara Khan, the former Independent Adviser for Social Cohesion and Resilience, will give evidence on community cohesion. Dama Sara is the author of the Khan Review, an independent report commissioned by the Government on threats to social cohesion and democratic resilience in the UK.

• Energy Security and Net Zero Committee (15:00): The CEO at the Climate Change Committee (CCC) and the CCC’s Head of Net Zero will give evidence on the work of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). The CCC is an independent non-departmental public body established under the 2008 Climate Change Act to advise on setting ‘carbon budgets’ (limits on economy-wide emissions across a five-year period) and to report on progress made in reducing emissions in line with the UK’s net zero target. The seventh carbon budget will be considered this year. A blogpost for the Hansard Society by the former chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, Philip Dunne, explains the legal framework for carbon budgets and the role of Parliament in scrutinising the Government’s plans.

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

Questions and statements: At 9:30, Transport Ministers will face questions from MPs. The questions on the Order Paper cover topics such as the safety and condition of roads, the affordability of bus and rail fares, accessible public transport, sustainable aviation fuel, local bus services, and the salaries of train drivers.

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 the next couple of weeks. Any other Ministerial Statements will follow.

Main business: A general debate on tackling violence against women and girls.

Adjournment: Labour MP Stella Creasy has the adjournment debate on the provision of debt advice services.

Westminster Hall: There is one debate today, on the impact of conflict on women and girls.

Oral questions: Peers will begin the day by questioning Ministers for 40 minutes, on the eligibility criteria for people claiming benefits due to ill health; the impact of changes to employer National Insurance contributions on town and parish councils in Wales; and the affordability of water bills. The topic of a fourth question will be decided by a ballot drawn at lunchtime on Tuesday 7 January.

Main business: There will be debates on two select committee reports:

• Long-duration energy storage: get on with it published by the Science and Technology Committee

• Our friends in the North: UK strategy towards the Arctic published by the International Relations and Defence Committee.

House of Commons

• Public Accounts Committee (10:00): The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and other senior officials from the MoJ and HM Courts and Tribunals Service will give evidence on Crown Court backlogs. The Committee’s inquiry builds upon a report on the Crown Court backlog published in May 2024 by the National Audit Office.

Neither House is sitting today.