Introduction
You can draft ping pong motions and their amendments in the same way as drafting amendments on a 'List of Draft Amendments (LoDA). The same applies to reason motions.
How to create a LoDA
From the 'Amendment Workspace' tab, click on the + New button in the top right
You should select 'traditional'
The system will ask you to provide the following information:
Bill version
House
Stage - Select Ping Pong
List name
Proposer
When you have added the necessary details, click on the Create button
The system will take you to the Editor, with an empty List of Draft Amendments template loaded and pre-populated with the affected bill short title.
Hints and tips#The motion context is the amendment (or Commons Reason/ping pong amendment) that the motion is referring to. This information is parsed and used to help sort the amendment lists that are automatically generated. The parse logic can work out phrases that include:
Lords amendments 1, 2 and 4
Lords amendments 1 to 3
Commons amendment 1
Commons amendment no. 4
Commons amendment nos. 3 to 6
We have locked certain elements in ping pong motions to prevent you from deleting them e.g. motion context. This is because when a list is auto-generated, any duplicate motion contexts are stripped so there is only one motion context before 2 or more motions that point to the same amendment.
To check if the motion context has successfully parsed, open the "Amendment Information' right-hand panel and check the numbers that appear in the table row called "Provision" - it should list all the numbers that it has successfully parsed e.g. "amnd_2"
When you save your list, your locks will be released. At the same time, the "Amendment Information" panel will be updated with any changes to the instruction resulting in different 'location' information e.g. if you changed a page or line number etc.
Selecting a proposer from the 'Create list of draft amendments' dialogue box doesn't work yet for Ping Pong. You can update the proposers associated to the motions (and their amendments) by clicking on the blue proposer element in the Editor.
The default permissions set will be that any user in the same organisation as you will have read/write access to your document including the ability to submit one or more amendments within it.
The bill version will default to the latest published bill version in the selected project.
When you save your List of Draft Amendments, any new motion will be automatically assigned a unique number constructed from the abbreviated form of the organisation you belong to, followed by a number e.g. HoC1 which will stay with the motion throughout its lifetime and can provide a handy reference for the amendment before the official number is assigned
Reason motions
These are treated the same as ping pong motions and amendments. To share them with the House of Commons, users must submit them. This will make them visible and editable by Commons users who can table, and mark them as 'ready for publishing' in the same way they would for ping pong motions or normal amendments. Once a reason motion is 'ready for publishing' they will automatically appear in the 'Reasons document' when it is generated (and the list is updated).