Private member's bill

What it means

Private members' public bills are numbered from C-201 to C-1000 in the order they are introduced, which is why the bill number alone usually tells you what you are looking at: a low number below C-201 is a government bill, and anything from C-201 up is a private member's bill.

They compete for a scarce resource. One hour is set aside each sitting day for Private Members' Business, shared across bills and motions from every non-minister member of the House. Items reach the floor through an order of precedence built from a draw held after a general election, and are replenished from the list as items are disposed of.

The consequence is arithmetic, not conspiracy: most private members' bills never receive a vote at second reading, let alone become law. A private member's bill that does pass has usually attracted cross-party support, because its sponsor cannot supply a majority on their own.

That does not make them pointless. A private member's bill is one of the few instruments a backbencher controls outright. It sets an agenda, forces a recorded position from colleagues if it reaches a division, and is frequently the first appearance of a policy that a government later adopts in its own bill.

The Senate equivalent, introduced by a senator, is a Senate public bill and carries an S- number. A separate and often-confused category is the private bill, which concerns a particular person or corporation rather than the public at large.