You can prevent a private bill from passing without debate through second reading, report stage and third reading:
- You can call “object” when the Clerk reads the title of the bill immediately after Prayers. This prevents the bill from making any progress that day.
- Once you’ve called “object”, you can put down a ‘blocking motion’ in the Private Bill Office. The motion takes the form “That the Bill be read a second [third] time upon this day six months.” If there’s a blocking motion on the Order Paper the bill can’t progress further at the time for unopposed business after Prayers. You can repeatedly delay the bill in this way, but you will need to renew the motion in the Private Bill Office every seven days. Putting down a blocking motion may lead to the promotor of the bill contacting you to explain their intention or altering parts of the bill in order to reach a compromise.
When a bill is opposed repeatedly, the Chairman of Ways and Means (the principal Deputy Speaker) can schedule it for a debate.
You can also submit a reasoned amendment to the second or third reading of a private bill.
You can write to the Speaker to object to the classification of a bill as private if you think it should be a public or hybrid bill. Many complex factors influence decisions on whether a bill is public or private. You should seek advice from the Clerk of Private Bills if you think a bill has been classed wrongly.