My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal, I beg to move the Motion standing in her name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I thought it would be helpful for noble Lords if I set out how proceedings will work today. As the House will know, the House of Commons is currently considering the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill. While this is happening, our House will have a general take-note debate led by my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch. This is intended to form the substantive debate on the Bill, ahead of a formal Second Reading when the Bill reaches our House.
Twenty-seven noble Lords are signed up to speak, with an advisory Back-Bench contribution time of five minutes. This is designed to balance the importance of scrutiny with concluding our proceedings at a reasonable hour. When the clock reaches four minutes, Back-Bench speakers should begin to make their concluding remarks and at five minutes, their time is up.
If the Bill arrives from the Commons during the take-note debate, we will briefly adjourn the debate to give the Bill a First Reading. This allows the Bill to be printed and means that noble Lords can then approach the Public Bill Office to table amendments. Once the debate has concluded, we will have a formal Second Reading and adjourn for an hour to allow noble Lords to table amendments for Committee stage. The precise timings for amendments will be announced in the House and advertised on the annunciator. Today’s list will then be reissued with the groupings of any amendments for Committee stage debates.
Once Committee has concluded, and if no amendments have been made, we will then proceed to a formal Report stage and Third Reading. If the Bill is delayed in the Commons for any reason, some of these arrangements will change, and the Whips and I will update the House at a suitable point. The House will rise once the Bill has received Royal Assent.