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The House voted on the Lords Amendments 6B to 6F to the Public Order Bill on Wednesday 22 March 2023. The Bill provides the police with greater powers to respond to disruptive protests.  The Lords amendments would limit powers to stop and search based on a senior police officer’s view that an offence related to protesting may be committed in a certain area for a maximum of 24 hours.

The House voted on the Windsor Framework (Democratic Scrutiny) Regulations 2023. New UK legislation will be required to implement some of the Framework, for example amending the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to implement the “Stormont Brake”. The Government announced that it would introduce secondary legislation to implement the Stormont Brake in the form of a Statutory Instrument (SI).

On Tuesday 21 March, at the end of the final day of the Budget debate, the House was asked to agree the Budget resolutions. 

There were two votes.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer set out the Government’s  Budget on 15 March 2023. The Budget was followed by four days of debate on the Budget Resolutions. Each day of debate covers a different policy area. I made a speech to the House on Tuesday 21 March 2023. Here is my speech: