HOUSE OF LORDS - United Kingdom Parliament

advice when the amendment is called, and asks the House to endorse
the opinion of the Public Bill Office. The reason for this is that the
admissibility of an amendment can ultimately be decided only by the
House itself, there being no authority that can in advance rule an
amendment out of order. The following general rules are observed:
amendments must be relevant to the subject matter of the bill 1
and to the clause or Schedule to which they are proposed;
amendments proposed at committee or any other stage must not
be inconsistent with a previous decision taken at that stage, 2
except where alternative amendments are proposed to the same
place in the bill;
amendments to a Schedule are not in order if they go beyond the
scope of, or are contrary to, the relevant clause which has been
agreed to;
amendments to the long title are not in order unless they are to
rectify a mistake in the original title, to restate the title more
clearly, or to reflect amendments to the bill which are relevant to
the bill but not covered by the former long title;
clause headings, and headings placed above parts of the bill or
above groups of clauses, are technically not part of the bill and so
are not open to amendment. Punctuation is also technically not
part of the bill.
8.57 Tabling amendments to bills originating in the House of Commons
is unprofitable if such amendments appear to be material and intolerable
infringements of Commons financial privilege, in that they impose a
charge not covered by the terms of the money or Ways and Means
resolutions in the Commons, unless there is reason to believe that the
Commons will pass a supplementary financial resolution (see paragraph
8.180).
Printing of amendments
8.58 All amendments to a particular bill tabled on the same day are
printed in one daily sheet, and are not numbered at this stage. The names
1 See HL Deb. 6 February 1968, cols 1075–1086.
2 SO 38.
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