Members of the House of Lords have debated the UK-Mauritius Agreement concerning the Chagos Archipelago, including the Diego Garcia military base. As part of the debate, members considered two motions against the ratification of the treaty (the first was disagreed to and the second was withdrawn). The House also discussed a recent report on the agreement from the House of Lords International Agreements Committee, which reported the treaty to the House for special attention and debate.

The House of Lords was recalled to deliberate on the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill, aimed at ensuring the continued operation of the British steel industry. Initiated by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch, the Bill underwent first and second readings, followed by a committee stage where amendments were discussed and subsequently withdrawn after ministerial responses. The Bill successfully passed through its final stages and received Royal Assent on 12 April 2025, becoming an official Act of Parliament. This recall aligns with the procedural norms for addressing urgent legislative matters, similar to the recall for the Afghanistan situation in August 2021.

The House of Lords has introduced the Commercial Organisations and Public Authorities Duty (Human Rights and Environment) Bill [HL], sponsored by Baroness Young of Hornsey. The Bill would place a duty on commercial organisations and public authorities to prevent human rights and environmental harms across their operations, subsidiaries and value chains by requiring them to undertake human rights and environmental due diligence. The Bill would require organisations to identify, prevent, mitigate and remedy harms, engage with affected rightsholders, establish grievance mechanisms, monitor and report on their actions, and adopt responsible disengagement where risks cannot be adequately addressed. It would require larger commercial organisations and public authorities to publish reports on their due diligence and provide information on request, while introducing procurement obligations requiring public authorities to assess suppliers’ compliance before awarding contracts.

In what could have been the final stage of the progress of the Employment Rights Bill (ERB) through Parliament, the House of Lords on 28 October 2025 voted to send the following amendments back to the House of Commons:

The House of Lords has published a summary of its activities over the course of 2022. According to the House of Lords, it considered 5,244 changes to 100 bills, pressed government for action and questioned decisions with debates, daily oral questions and urgent questions in over 3,350 hours of business. The bills considered by the House of Lords included topics on health and social care, cost of living, Ukraine, the environment, education, policing and home affairs.

The House of Lords considered the amendments from the House of Commons to the Data (Use and Access) Bill on 12 May 2025. While the amendments regarding AI and copyright were generally accepted (see LNB News 08/05/2025 44), Baroness Kidron, who has been a staunch advocate for the creative industries, has proposed a new amendment to push for transparency from AI providers for copyright owners. The amendment, definitively agreed by a large majority, would oblige the government to introduce secondary legislation requiring AI developers and providers to publish information on 'the text and data used in the pre-training, training, fine-tuning and retrieval-augmented generation in the AI model, or any other data input to the AI model', in addition to information on any bots used in the AI development.

The Financial Services Regulation Committee was reappointed by the House of Lords on Monday 29 July 2024, following the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday 17 July 2024.

The House of Lords Economic Affairs Finance Bill Sub-Committee (the Committee) has published a report examining the proposed inheritance tax (IHT) reforms in the draft Finance Bill 2025–26. The report considers proposals to bring unused pension funds and certain death benefits within the scope of IHT from April 2027, as well as reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief due to take effect from April 2026. In relation to pensions, the Committee has concluded that proposals to bring unused pension funds and certain pension death benefits within IHT from April 2027 remain operationally problematic and risk being unworkable without further reform.

The Mental Health Bill has undergone day four of the committee stage where members continued the in-depth analysis of the Bill; held on 27 January 2025, which seeks to amend provisions of the Mental Health Act 1983 in relation to mentally disordered persons; and for connected purposes. Members proposed changes that cover issues such as: protecting children from exploitation or manipulation and recording patients escorted to accident and emergency by the police.

The House of Lords will consider amendments made by the House of Commons to the Employment Rights Bill on 28 October 2025, in what should be the final stage of the process. It is expected that Royal Assent will follow in early November.

The UK Government has maintained the 60% office attendance mandate for civil servants, originally implemented by the Conservative administration and continued under Labour. This policy requires civil servants to spend at least 60% of their working week in government buildings or on official business, citing the benefits of face-to-face interactions. However, the mandate has faced opposition, particularly from HM Land Registry staff who have recently voted in favour of strike action. In response to these developments, the House of Lords is scheduled to debate potential changes to the office attendance requirements on 9 January 2025, following a topical question raised by Lord Farmer.

The House of Lords will debate the delivery of maternity services in England. Baroness Taylor of Bolton will put forward the debate with contributing members expecting to include Baroness Watkins of Tavistock, Baroness Cumberlege and Baroness Merron. Lord Markham, Parliamentary Under Secretary in the Department of Health and Social Care, will respond on the government’s behalf. The debate can be watched live on Parliament TV from 11:45 am on 25 January 2024.