Any Member of Parliament can table amendments, including those who have not been appointed to the Committee. However, only members of the Committee can move (introduce) their amendments.

If an MP who is not on the Committee tables an amendment, it will only be called for consideration if an MP on the Committee indicates – for example, by adding their name to it on the amendment paper – that they are willing to move it on the proposer’s behalf.

Amendments proposed to a bill are published in an amendment paper, which is re-printed every day that new amendments are tabled.

MPs are also encouraged to provide a short explanatory note that appears alongside their amendment.

The amendments are ‘marshalled’ (arranged) on the amendment paper in an order that corresponds to the part of the bill they would amend (unless the Committee has agreed an order of consideration motion to change the ordering).

Where amendments propose changes at the same point in the bill, the following rules for marshalling the amendments apply:

• an amendment that proposes to leave out words and replace them with other words takes precedence over an amendment merely to leave out words;

• amendments proposed by the Member in charge of the bill take precedence over all others offered at the same place in a clause; and

• if neither of the above rules apply, amendments relating to the same point in the bill are listed in the order in which they were submitted.

Amendments should be tabled at least three working days (excluding recesses) before they are considered by the Committee.

The assisted dying bill is scheduled to sit on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, therefore the following deadlines for submission of amendments apply:

• for amendments to be called on Tuesday, the preceding Thursday; and

• for amendments to be called on Wednesday, the preceding Friday.

Exceptionally, manuscript amendments – amendments for which notice has not been given – may be permitted by the Chair of the Committee. However, this is rare and a very good reason for the lack of notice would be required.

On the amendment paper, the use of stars indicates how much notice has been given.

• No star: the amendment has been on the amendment paper for the required three days’ notice period and may be selected by the Chair.

• Hollow star: the amendment has been on the amendment paper for two days.

• Full black star: the amendment has been on the amendment paper for only one day.

The Chair does not usually select ‘starred’ amendments due to the lack of appropriate notice.

Manuscript amendments do not appear on the amendment paper because no notice is given.

The Chair of the Public Bill Committee is empowered to select the amendments for debate, and then ‘group’ similar amendments, new clauses and clause-stand-part motions so that they can be debated together. This is intended to provide a coherent, efficient structure to the proceedings and to avoid repetitious and incomprehensible debates.

The Chair(s), advised by the Clerks to the Committee, must determine whether an amendment is in order and therefore eligible for selection.

If an amendment is not selected, it cannot be moved and will not be debated.

A new clause or new schedule may also be ruled out of order for many of the same reasons as an amendment.

The Chair can change their decision on selection during the Committee’s proceedings.

The rules on inadmissible amendments are set out in Erskine May.

The most common reasons why an amendment may be deemed out of order are:

• Scope: any amendment, new clause or new schedule must be within the scope of the bill. Erskine May says the scope of a bill “represents the reasonable limits of its collective purposes, as defined by its existing clauses and schedules.” In practice, at Committee stage, this means that MPs cannot add purposes to a bill which the bill on Second Reading did not envisage, unless the additional purpose(s) were closely related to the original purpose. Amendments must also relate to the subject matter of the clause or schedule they would amend, otherwise they must be moved as new clauses or new schedules. Making these decisions sometimes requires the Chair of the Committee to exercise fine procedural and political judgement.

• Principle: amendments, new clauses and new schedules must not effectively reverse the principle of the bill as approved at Second Reading.

• Money and charges: any amendment, new clause or new schedule which involves the imposition of a charge or a commitment to expenditure must have financial cover in the form of a Ways and Means or a money resolution to grant parliamentary authorisation to the financial proposal. However, only the Government can bring forward such motions. House of Commons Standing Order No.48 enshrines the principle of the financial initiative of the Crown which requires that only spending proposals made by Ministers will be considered by the House (historically this was introduced to limit ‘pork barrel’ politics by MPs seeking funds for local constituency expenditure but with little or no regard for the nation’s finances). In practice, most money motions introduced by the Government – and certainly the one for the assisted dying bill agreed by the House on 22 January 2025 - are broadly drafted and therefore this is unlikely to be a barrier to selection in most cases.

• Incoherence: any amendment that is “vague, trifling or tendered in a spirit of mockery” is not permitted. Nor is an amendment, new clause or new schedule that does not make sense – grammatically or intellectually – or which is not accompanied by the consequential amendments that would need to be made throughout the rest of the bill if the change was agreed.

• Affects other subsections: an amendment to leave out a subsection would be out of order if subsequent subsections in the same clause were “dependent upon or ancillary to” the first subsection, because the effect of passing the amendment would be to wreck the clause.

• Omitting a clause or schedule: MPs cannot move an amendment which would remove a clause, or which would substitute an existing clause with a new clause, because they will have an opportunity to simply oppose the question that the “clause stand part” of the bill. However, though amendments to leave out a clause are never called by the Chair, MPs often still propose such amendments as a courtesy to the Committee because it is a way for them to indicate their intention to speak and vote against that particular clause.

The Chair(s) may then group the clause-stand-part motions, selected amendments, new clauses and new schedules for debate. Typically, there are three reasons why they may be grouped together.

• Incompatibility: for example, where two amendments propose incompatible changes to the same text, grouping them together for debate enables the two choices to be debated at the same time and their pros and cons explored. At the conclusion of the debate the first amendment will then be put. If that is agreed, the second amendment will fall as it is incompatible with what the Committee has decided. If that first amendment is rejected, a vote will then take place on the second alternative amendment.

• Connected or consequential proposals: for example, where an amendment or new clause is proposed, there may follow a series of further changes that need to be made to ensure consistency throughout the rest of the bill. If the lead amendment is agreed by the Committee, the rest of the amendments in the group are regarded as having been agreed. Typically, the rest of the amendments in the group will be decided without a division, as they are the natural conclusion of the decision made on the lead amendment. If the Committee’s members push the rest of the amendments to a division, it is generally a sign of obstruction and time-wasting.

• Related proposals: for example, amendments and new clauses that relate to the same topic will often be grouped together for debate. Of the three groups it is this where the Chair of the Committee may be required to exercise his/her political judgement in the selection process.

There are several ways in which different questions can be grouped together for debate. For example:

• Amendments grouped with other amendments and new clauses. This is the most common form of grouping. This allows MPs to speak to every amendment in a related package of amendments rather than dealing with each one individually.

• Clause-stand-part motions grouped with amendments to that clause. This allows MPs to refer to the merits of the clause during the debate on the amendments. Once the amendment(s) are disposed of, the Chair may then put the question that the clause stand part of the bill forthwith without further debate.

• Clause-stand-part motions for several related clauses. This allows MPs to refer to the merits of several related clauses during the debate on the first clause in that group. The questions on those clauses would then be put without further debate as soon as they are reached.

Once the Chair has decided which amendments to select and how they ought to be grouped, the Chair’s ‘provisional selection and grouping of amendments’ will be published on the relevant bill page of the parliamentary website.

The Chair may occasionally amend their grouping and selection during the meeting of the Committee itself. The provisional grouping and selection will also be updated and re-published throughout the Committee stage proceedings, in advance of each day’s meeting, to take account of newly tabled amendments and the decisions the Committee has already made.

Before the question that the “clause stand part” of the bill can be put to the Committee, any proposed amendments to the relevant clause must be dispensed with.

The MP responsible for an amendment must decide whether to move it. If they do not, then another member of the Committee can move it or else it is not proposed to the Committee.

Once an amendment is moved, and the mover gives a speech in support of their amendment(s), the Chair proposes the question “that the amendment be made” and a debate may then be held on that question.

It is common for MPs to withdraw their amendment at the end of the debate to avoid the need for a division. Only the MP who moved the amendment can withdraw it, and they must ask for unanimous leave from the Committee to do so. If any MP objects to the withdrawal, the question must be put to the Committee for a vote.

Once all the amendments proposed to a clause have been disposed of, the Chair proposes the main question.

• If no amendments have been made to a clause, the question put is that the “clause stand part” of the bill. A debate may then take place on that question, though often there is no need for one, because the clause has been grouped with the amendments for debate (see more below) and the question is therefore put “forthwith” (that is, without debate).

• If an amendment has been made to a clause, the question put by the Chair is “that the clause as amended stand part of the Bill”.

During a debate on a group, only the first amendment is moved (introduced for consideration) formally. At the end of that debate, the mover of that amendment can either withdraw the amendment or push it to a vote.

After the amendment is dispensed with, the Chair must decide which other amendments in the group should be put to a vote.

The Chair may decide not to call one or more of the other amendments in the group if it is:

• incompatible with an amendment that has already been agreed by the Committee; or

• consequential on or connected to an amendment that has been rejected.

Whether the Chair calls one or more of the other amendments in the group for separate decision (a vote) is at their discretion. However, they would normally call a vote:

• where an amendment is consequential on an amendment that has been agreed; or

• where a member of the Committee has indicated a desire for an amendment to be voted on separately.

However, grouping does not change the order in which the Committee must decide the questions (by voting) on amendments – that is determined by the order in which the amendment appears in relation to the bill.

Therefore, if the Chair does decide to call other amendments in the group for a separate decision, they will be put to the Committee for a vote once the Committee’s deliberations reach the amendments’ position on the amendment paper.

• If, for example, a clause positioned towards the end of the bill is grouped with a clause at the start of the bill, then the clause towards the end will be debated long before the Committee may formally decide (vote on) whether it should “stand part” of the bill.

• Where a proposed new clause requires consequential amendments, which are grouped with the new clause for debate, these consequential changes would need to be decided earlier in the proceedings than the new clause, because new clauses are not voted on until all clause-stand-part motions have been decided. The debate on the group will take place early in the proceedings and will focus on the substance of the new clause, but formally the question that is put, and the vote that is held, will be on the earliest consequential amendment.

  • If the first consequential amendment is rejected, then the new clause will fall with it (and thus there will be no vote on that new clause when it is reached).

  • If the first consequential amendment is agreed, then the vote on the new clause will take place, but much later in the proceedings.

Once the clauses of the bill have been decided, the Committee considers any new clauses, unless it has decided on a different order of consideration.

New clauses proposed by the MP in charge of the bill – in this case, Kim Leadbeater – are considered first, followed by other new clauses in the order in which they were submitted.

The procedure for consideration of new clauses is different from that for amendments or existing clauses.

• The new clause must be read for the first time, to which end the Clerk simply reads the title of the new clause out loud to the Committee.

• The question “that the clause be read a second time” is then proposed, with the debate taking place on that question.

• If that question is agreed to, then amendments to the new clause can be moved.

• The question is then put “that the clause (as amended) be added to the Bill”. This is often not debated.

• If the Committee agrees to a new clause, then the MP in charge of the bill and the Clerks must decide where in the bill it is to be inserted.

After the new clauses, the Committee considers the schedules of the bill, unless it has ordered otherwise.

The procedure for consideration of schedules and new schedules is the same as that for clauses and new clauses.

As Private Members’ Bills are unprogrammed, there is no ‘out-date’ for the Committee’s work. Instead, the Committee is self-governing – it will decide how many sittings are needed and how long each sitting lasts, and it will continue its work until it has disposed of every amendment and every clause.

Being self-governing, the Committee will therefore decide how much time it wishes to spend debating each amendment, clause and schedule.

MPs may speak more than once in any debate in Public Bill Committee, in contrast to legislative proceedings at Second Reading and Report Stage in the Chamber.

The use of time is therefore a powerful weapon in the hands of opponents of Private Members’ Bills.

In theory, MPs can seek to delay the bill’s progress by speaking at length in every debate on every amendment and by proposing many amendments to prolong the length of the proceedings.

In practice, filibustering is not permitted and there are two ways in which delaying tactics can be stopped.

• Intervention by the Chair: in certain circumstances the Chair has the power to direct a Member to sit down if their speech becomes repetitive, irrelevant to the debate, or obstructive. Standing Orders state that, having first called the attention of the Committee to the conduct of a Member who “persists in irrelevance, or tedious repetition either of [their] own arguments or of the arguments used by other Members”, the Chair may direct the Member to end their speech.

• The closure: if a debate is consuming an excessive amount of time, the bill’s sponsor, Kim Leadbeater MP, or another member of the Committee may seek to move a closure motion; that is, to move “that the question be now put”. If the closure motion is agreed by the Committee, then the debate on the current group of amendments will be brought to a close and the question being debated will be put to a vote. However, certain conditions apply to the process.

The Chair of the Committee must first decide whether to accept the request for the closure motion. The Chair will not put the closure motion to a vote if they deem that the matter has been insufficiently debated, or, as Erskine May states, if it appears that the closure “is an abuse of the rules of the House or an infringement of the rights of the minority.”

If the Chair does agree to the request for a closure motion, then for that motion to succeed, two conditions must be satisfied:

• of the MPs participating in the vote on the closure, a majority must vote in favour; and

• at least the quorum of the Committee must vote in favour.

The quorum for the assisted dying bill’s Public Bill Committee is eight MPs. Therefore, if the closure motion were agreed by seven votes to five, the closure would satisfy only the first condition and debate would continue. Conversely, if the closure motion were agreed by 12 votes to eight it would succeed, and the debate would be brought to an end.

It is rare for the closure to be moved in a Public Bill Committee. According to researcher, Kacper Surdy, the last time the closure was used in a Public Bill Committee was in March 2012 during debate on the Financial Services Bill.

The programming of Government bills since the late 2000s, and the now typically short Committee stages for Private Member’s Bills, have reduced the frequency of delaying tactics. Programme orders, which impose a fixed deadline on proceedings for Government bills, now make time-wasting in PBCs an ineffective weapon.

However, the combination of the controversial nature of the legislation and the unprogrammed Committee proceedings make it more likely (but not inevitable) that the closure may, unusually, be called on during this stage of the assisted dying bill.

Parliamentary tactics do come into play at Public Bill Committee stage because there may be consequences for later stages of the bill’s scrutiny if an amendment is pushed to a vote in Committee and is rejected.

Erskine May states that amendments which were rejected or withdrawn in committee can be moved again at Report, and that Members may also seek to amend a bill at Report to reverse any amendments made in Committee.

However, the Speaker may be disinclined to select an amendment that has been thoroughly discussed in Committee, particularly where it relates to a relatively minor matter or where relatively few Members in the wider House have indicated an interest in further debate at Report.