Page Comparison

Introduction

This page sets out the logic and rules applied by Lawmaker when generating or updating Commons lists including:

• what amendments/motions are included,

• how they are sorted,

• if and how they are numbered,

• other rules relating to headings etc. that are automatically generated.

(Rolling) Marshalled Lists

What amendments are included?

Amendments (or ping pong motions depending on the stage) will appear in the Rolling Marshalled List if they were recorded as having been “Ready for Publishing” up to the date of the amendment list and and they haven’t already got an outcome recorded against them e.g. Withdrawn before debate, Agreed to etc..

...

How are they sorted?

Amendments will be sorted by the Order of Consideration if there is one. If there is no Order of Consideration, they will be sorted in the order they appear in the Bill.

Amendments are also sorted by:

• their Page, line and column number,

• their published amendment number (if they are new Clause or new Schedule amendments), and

• their specified sort code e.g. M1, M2

Ping pong motions are sorted by the amendment they are referring to on the Consolidated List of Amendments (CLOA)

Numbering

Amendments (and ping pong motions) will not be numbered by the system when a Marshalled List is generated

• Numbers should be manually assigned to amendments as part of setting the list ready for publication

• The "Tools > Renumber Amendments" function should assist with manual assignment of numbers to amendments

Starred amendments

A black star will automatically appear before an amendment or ping pong motion that has never appeared on a previous rolling marshalled list

A white (hollow) star will automatically appear before an amendment or ping pong motion that has been published once already on a rolling marshalled list (converting the black star to an white star)

You can manually add or remove black and white stars by right-clicking on your selected amendment and selecting 'update star status'

Headings

• The system will automatically insert short rules between amendments and motions in the list

• Amendments to amendments (A2A)

  • Amendments to amendments will appear after their target amendment in the sorted list

  • Line numbers will appear automatically against the target amendment in the PDF (not in the Editor) when you generate a PDF of the Rolling Marshalled List/Daily (as long as the A2A is in the same list)

    • You can manually specify whether an amendment or ping pong motion should be line numbered in a PDF by right-clicking in the Editor on the selected amendment/motion and selecting "Update line numbering status" 

  • A heading will automatically appear before the amendment to amendment

  • If you have more than one A2A amending the same target amendment, delete the text from the subsequent A2A's headings without deleting the heading element and the headings then will not appear in the PDF

• Interstitial headings

  • Can be inserted by selecting 'Interstitial heading' from the insert menu when you are editing a Marshalled List

• Withdrawn amendments

  • This section can be inserted by selecting "Withdrawn Amendments" from the insert menu when you are editing a Marshalled List

  • These will be listed at the end of the list whenever they are withdrawn before debate

• Motions and resolutions and Orders

  • Motions and resolutions must be manually inserted into the Marshalled list by selecting 'motion' or 'resolution' from the insert menu

  • Orders cannot be inserted, they are created by converting a resolution into an order by right-clicking on the selected resolution and selecting 'Convert to order'

• Starred amendments
  • A black star will automatically appear before an amendment or ping pong motion that has never appeared on a previous rolling marshalled list
    • A white (hollow) star will automatically appear before an amendment or ping pong motion that has been published once already on a rolling marshalled list (converting the black star to an white star)
  • You can manually add or remove black and white stars by right-clicking on your selected amendment and selecting 'update star status'
• Highlighted amendments in red text
  • If an amendment is highlighted in red text it means that two or more have been identified as appearing in the same page/line location OR there are 2 or more new Clause/new Schedule amendments and at least one of these amendments do not have a sort code for the system to determine the correct order.  Once you specify a sort code for these highlighted amendments, the red highlighted text will disappear.

Proceedings

• It is assumed that outcomes against motions and amendments will be recorded in the appropriate Marshalled List.  Once you have finished updating the amendments and motions with outcomes, you can generate the Proceedings. 

• If you are planning on generating a Proceedings at the end of each day, you will need to create a new Proceedings each day of the sitting. 

• The system will create an empty document.  You will need to copy and paste motions and resolutions into the Proceedings from the Marshalled List.  Amendments will be automatically inserted when you run 'Update List'.

• The 'Update List' operation will not remove any amendments, motions, resolutions, interstitial headings, witness information or section/schedule outcomes.  This means that you can build up a running Proceedings document if you prefer - with new amendments appended to the end of the list and before the glossary and adjournment statement.  

• An interstitial heading will be inserted before the group of inserted amendments allowing you to record the sitting day information if required.  If not, select the interstitial heading element from the breadcrumb or from the structure view and delete it from the list.  They can be manually inserted from the insert menu (CCA) if you later decide you want one.

• The system will insert any amendments that have an outcome recorded against them on or between the supplied start and end dates in the 'Update List' dialogue box.  This is why you should record outcomes against the amendments before generating a proceedings.

• You can insert Witness List information using the insert menu - as well as clause/schedule outcome statements.  Short rules will be inserted automatically in the appropriate place as you build up the content of the document.

Ping Pong (Marshalled List)

• As covered previously, drafting ping pong motions and amendments is the same as creating Amendments - use the 'Amendments Workspace' to create a List of Draft Amendments (LoDA).  To view these motions, look to the Amendment Manager – and it is here, as well as in the LoDA itself, that you can advance your pp motions and amendments to the submitted stage, and then to tabled, and then to Ready to Publish.  At this point, you are ready to create an Official List.

• Official lists can be generated the same way as 'normal' amendments but you must select stage = Ping Pong

Ping Pong Proceedings

• It is assumed that outcomes against ping pong motions and amendments will be recorded in the appropriate Marshalled List open in an Editor, or in an ephemeral list created for that purpose.  Once you have finished updating the amendments and motions with outcomes, you can generate the Ping Pong Proceedings! 

• The system will create an empty document.   Amendments with decisions against them will be automatically inserted when you run 'Update List'.

• The 'Update List' operation will not remove any amendments, motions, resolutions, interstitial headings, witness information or section/schedule outcomes.  This means that you can build up a running Proceedings document if you prefer - with new amendments appended to the end of the list and before the glossary and adjournment statement.  

• The system will insert any amendments that have an outcome recorded against them on or between the supplied start and end dates in the 'Update List' dialogue box.  This is why you should record outcomes against the amendments before generating a proceedings.

•  Explanatory statements are not typically used at pp stage, although the functionality to add them remains in the CCA. Motions, resolutions and a space to list withdrawn amendments at this stage are options available from the CCA.

Reasons Document

• You will need some reason motions set to 'Ready for publishing' before you can generate a Reasons documents

• As with all Commons lists, you need to generate the empty list first, then update it with content by selecting "Tools > Update List"