This page was last updated on October 24th 2025. It primarily focuses on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill currently going through parliament but the same general principles would apply to any proposed new law.
When the government first publishes a bill it wants to make into a new law, the original version does not end up becoming law. As a bill goes through parliament, elements are subject to change as the government realises – or is persuaded – that some things are a priority for changing.
Main Types of Change
The main types of change are for the scope to be restricted or extended (applying in fewer or more situations respectively) or to enable more transparency (eg putting more detail in primary legislation on the face of the bill so it can’t just be filled in via secondary legislation later). Sometimes the government will add something completely new when the bill is partway through parliament.
Law But Not Law
Sometimes a whole section will be dropped. This is very rare but there are other ways for something technically in law never actually to happen eg by never being brought into force, such as the 2008 Education and Skills Act measures to regulate part-time schools or the enforcement provisions for post-16s not participating in education after the leaving age was raised. Read more here https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/law-but-not-law/
Routes To Bring Change
During the passage of a bill through parliament before it becomes law, bills are changed by public campaigns outside parliament which attract the government’s attention, and by members of parliament pointing out negative impacts or unintended consequences, or even perverse consequences where the measures in the bill may have the opposite effect to that intended (such as a safeguarding measure leading to greater risk or to more risk-taking behaviour)
Sometimes if the government sees that the same point is being made across a variety of political parties and especially from its own party, it will make concessions by tabling its own amendments This would always be the aim.
Bills Starting in Commons
Bills can begin in either the Commons or the Lords. It is largely a matter of parliamentary time as to which is chosen. This page focuses on bills starting in the commons because that has been the process for the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (unlike the previous government’s Schools Bill which started in the Lords)
Bills starting in the Commons are unlikely to be greatly changed in the first stages because the main Commons scrutiny is in a separate bill committee composed of a small hand-picked group of MPs with the majority from the party in government at the time. (Bills can start in the Commons or the Lords and it is largely a timetabling issue)
For bills starting in the Commons, such as the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the government can reasonably anticipate that most of the scrutiny and challenge will take place after the bill has finished in the commons and while it it is going through the House of Lords.
The government is most likely to make changes BETWEEN COMMITTEE AND REPORT (tabling its own government amendments for Report stage)
Lords After Commons
AT THE TIME OF WRITING ON OCTOBER 24TH THERE IS CURRENTLY NO DATE SCHEDULED FOR REPORT SO THE EARLIEST THIS COULD START WOULD BE THE SECOND HALF OF NOVEMBER
As explained here, a bill in the Lords is scrutinised through debate by way of amendments put forward by members of the House of Lords.
The House of Lords is allowed massively more time than the Commons to look at the details of a bill line by line. A bill generally goes through the House of Commons with hardly any time for scrutiny because everyone knows that scrutiny will happen in the Lords [“the other place”]. Read more about extra time in the Lords here https://politicsteaching.com/2024/01/13/how-effectively-can-the-house-of-lords-scrutinise-the-executive-2/
Committee stage in the House of Lords is generally “committee of the whole House” (contrasting with the handpicked small Commons committee where the political balance is always be tipped in favour of the party in government.) The government’s current working majority is 165 in the Commons but Labour does not have a majority in the Lords.
Amendments from peers are not about getting things changed there and then, but they can shine a spotlight on a particular area and hopefully make people stop and think whether the measures are proportionate and whether the government’s ambitions are realistic and whether these are the right priorities.
Sometimes if the government sees that the same point is being made across a variety of political parties and especially from its own party, it will make concessions by tabling its own surprise amendments ahead of the debate; this includes Report stage in the House of Lords, not just Committee.
After Committee stage in the Lords there is a wait of at least 2 weeks – which has to be timetabled around recess dates – before Report stage. Report in the Lords is quite different from the Commons.
The Commons rattled through Report in an afternoon and everything went through on the nod, whereas Report in the Lords by convention is allowed half the number of days that the Lords have taken in Committee.
THE EARLIEST DATE FOR REPORT WOULD BE THE SECOND HALF OF NOVEMBER
As with the Commons, the government is most likely to make changes BETWEEN COMMITTEE AND REPORT (tabling its own government amendments for Report stage)
Voting on Amendments
It is extremely rare for a member of the House of Lords to press for a vote on their amendment. This is because the responsible Minister for the Department in the Lords will always respond in such a way as to suggest that the amendment is not necessary or that other concessions can be made without the amendment, such as further meetings with concerned parties or issues to be made clear in guidance.
Peers know that pressing for a vote generally means losing the vote, and that losing a vote may act against getting something changed later, so in playing the long game they will “beg leave to withdraw” the amendment.
Votes are called “divisions” because the House literally has to get up and divide into different factions queuing up in different lines; there is no electronic voting. The number of divisions (votes) in debates can be tracked in what is called “Minutes of Proceedings” here.
Amendments can be tabled up to the last minute but ideally amendments from peers will be tabled well ahead of the debate so that the government has a sense of which areas are the most problematic. The ultimate aim would be to induce the government to react by tabling its own amendments addressing the issues most opposed and questioned.
Running lists of amendments are published ahead of the debate which can be read here