What happens at third reading of a bill
Third reading is the final debate and vote on a bill in each House. In the House of Commons the bill can no longer be amended: the House simply decides whether to pass the bill in the form it has reached. In the House of Lords, amendments are still permitted at third reading, provided the issue was not fully decided at an earlier stage, so the Lords uses it to tidy up loose ends.
Third reading in the Commons
Commons third reading is usually short, often taken immediately after report stage on the same day. The debate is confined to what is actually in the bill, not what members wish were in it, and no amendments to the text are possible. The House votes on whether the bill should pass, and defeat at this point is extremely rare: a bill that has survived second reading, committee and report has already cleared every argument third reading can offer.
Short does not mean empty. Third reading speeches are where frontbenches put their final positions on the record, and where a bill’s remaining opponents state, for the record and for the other House, exactly what they still object to.
Third reading in the Lords
The Lords does things differently. Amendments can be made at third reading, and the stage is routinely used to clarify remaining uncertainties, deliver late government concessions, and correct errors, provided the House is not being asked to reopen a question it has already fully decided. A Lords third reading can therefore still change a bill’s text, which is worth remembering when tracking a bill that seems all but finished.
The forms of words differ too. The Commons votes on the question that the bill be now read the third time; the Lords, after any amendments, decides the question that the bill do now pass.
What passing third reading means
A bill that passes third reading is finished in that House. If it has not yet been through the other House, it now goes there and repeats the whole sequence: first reading, second reading, committee, report and third reading.
If both Houses have now passed the bill, any differences between the two texts must be reconciled before it can become law. That reconciliation, the exchange of amendments known as ping pong, is the final stage of the journey, and if the two Houses have passed identical text, the bill goes straight on to Royal Assent.
Bills at this stage right now
From official parliamentary data, most recently updated first.
- Social Housing Bill [HL] · 21 July 2026
- Cheltenham Borough Council (Markets) Bill · 14 July 2026
- Courts (Remote Hearings) Bill · 30 April 2026
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