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Preparing the Consolidated List of Amendments

Owned by Matt Lynch
Last updated: 06 Oct 2023 by Emily Pughe
7 min read

The first Consolidated List of Amendments will bring together all agreed amendments from the second House from all amending stages. 

Subsequent versions of the Consolidated List will then be updated by removing agreed amendments and including messages going back to the other House for amendments still in play.

How to generate the first Consolidated List of Amendments

Towards the end of the final stage, a consolidated list of amendments can be generated, pulling together all the agreed amendments from all stages in the 2nd House that are either agreed, or highly likely to be agreed once the final stage is completed. It’s often generated a day or two early to give OPC enough time to review it before it is sent to the originating House for publishing. This is a 2-step process:

  1. First copy all the agreed (or likely to be agreed) amendments to ‘ping pong’ stage, and

  2. Finally, generate the Consolidated List, updating the amendments in it as normal.

How to copy the agreed (or likely to be agreed) amendments to ‘Ping Pong’ stage

  1. Start with current bill version: from the Amendment Manager select using the checkboxes all ‘agreed’ amendments (tip: use the filters here); or any amendments that are likely to be agreed.

  2. Copy the amendments to ping pong stage by selecting Amendment Actions > Move/copy to a different stage (for more information see Moving or copying amendments to a different stage (including ping pong motions) )

  3. In the dialog box:

    1. Select “Copy amendments to a different stage”

    2. Select Ping Pong for stage

    3. Bill version should be “As brought from…” version

    4. Click on Confirm button when ready

  4. The amendments will be copied to ping pong stage and you will be able to view them by selecting the correct bill version filter in the top-left of the page (in this case, the “As brought from…” stage). They will be ‘Draft’ status and won’t have a proposer.

  5. Repeat steps 1-4 above for any other amending stage in the 2nd House if there were also agreed amendments there.

  1. The selected amendments will essentially be duplicated and copied across to Ping Pong stage. The following changes will be made to them:

    1. The newly created amendments will be assigned new DNumbers

    2. They will no longer have a number assigned to them

    3. Any proposers and supporters will be removed

    4. Any events that were recorded against the original amendment (submitting, tabling, publishing etc.) will not be copied across so they will appear as “Draft”

  2. Once the amendment tabs are changed from filtering by bill version to filtering by stage, this process will be a lot easier see what’s going on.

How to generate the Consolidated List

Once all amendments have been copied across to Ping Pong, it’s possible to generate the Consolidated List:

  1. Select Amendment Manager > Create Official List

  2. In the dialog box that appears, select ‘Consolidated List of Amendments’

  3. Fill in the options on the dialog box and click on Create button

  4. In newly created list in the Editor:

    1. Update the amendments in the list so that they point to the version of the Bill when it first entered the 2nd House

    2. Merge, delete and move amendments around as required

      1. You may notice that some amendments are at the top of the list when they should be further down. This is because LM is associating ping pong amendments with the As Brought from the Commons version of the Bill, and the amendments are to provisions that are beyond what was contained in that Bill print. You don't need to worry - these amendments can be dragged and dropped into place.

    3. If you made changes to clause & schedule numbers as part of updating the amendments also check that the associated interstitial heading needs updating as well,

    4. After you’ve finished updating the amendments, manually insert any missing interstitial headings where required (select Interstitial heading from the Insert Menu, making sure your cursor is in the ping pong motion before the location where the interstitial heading should be inserted)

    5. Renumber the amendments so that they are now numbered 1 to n (Tools > Renumber amendments)

    6. Save and close the list

  5. If you need to add further amendments after you have begun work on the consolidated list (for example, there are 3rd reading amendments or unexpected divisions), copy those amendments to Ping Pong stage in the same way as outlined in "How to copy the agreed (or likely to be agreed) amendments to ‘Ping Pong’ stage" above. Open the newly duplicated amendments in a temporary list and copy and paste them into the correct place in your consolidated list. You can do this by right-clicking on the amendment in the structure view or by right-clicking on the 'Amendment' element in the breadcrumb for that amendment. Tip: Make sure to use ctrl+V when pasting into the correct place. 

  6. Share the document version with the other House and let them know that it’s ready for them to prepare for publishing

If you want to insert an interstitial heading before the first amendment in the Consolidated List, you will need to place you cursor in the 'list body' element.  To do this:

  1. Put your cursor at the start of the amendment heading e.g. “COMMONS AMENDMENT 3”

  2. Click on the left arrow on your keyboard and watch the breadcrumb change until you end up in 'list body'

  3. Click enter now and select 'Interstitial heading' from the insert menu and type in the Clause  reference number

The interstitial heading will be inserted before the amendment heading, at the top of the list. The reason for this manoeuvring of cursor location when inserting the first element in a list is because Lawmaker always inserts your selected element after the element that your cursor is in. The only way to insert something as the first item in a list, is to shift the cursor so that it’s in an element before the element at the start of the list.

Edit rights to the amendments belong to the House that published the latest version of the bill i.e. users in the second House. 

When you share your Consolidated List with the other House, make sure the amendments, interstitial headings and sort order is correct.

If you pick up a shared Consolidated List and notice there is a mistake with the amendments, you will not have edit rights to the amendments UNTIL YOU PUBLISH THE CONSOLIDATED LIST.  To correct the data you can either:

  • Contact someone in the other House who can make that change to the amendment for you

    • If the mistake is inside the amendment (e.g. page number wrong or message is wrong) they can update the amendment in a temporary list and save – when you refresh your Consolidated List – you will see their changes; or

    • If the mistake is in the list (e.g. a missing interstitial heading or the sort order is incorrect) they will need to update the Consolidated List itself and reshare the new version with you.

  • If you cannot get hold of someone in the other House in time, publish the list (to assign edit rights to you), make the change and then republish the list once it’s complete. At the time of writing this: only ping pong motions will appear on the website so publishing the Consolidated List with a mistake on it will not make the mistakes public.

How to create subsequent Consolidated List of Amendments

Once a ping pong round is complete, a revised Consolidated List of Amendments needs to be sent back to the other House so that they can publish the list and start the next ping pong round in their House:

  1. Duplicate the last published version of the Consolidated List

  2. Open the list in the Editor:

    1. Update the amendments that are still in play with any new messages (messages will include message text and potentially reasons or amendments)

    2. Delete the amendments that are no longer still in play

    3. Move amendments around according to any new groupings

    4. Create new interstitial headings as required

    5. Save and close the list

3.Share the list with the other House and let them know that it’s ready for them to prepare for publishing

 

  • Consolidated List of Amendments will always appear on the Official Lists tab, regardless of the bill version filter applied

  • Messages are children of the amendments they relate to. If a message relates to a group of amendments, it will be the last amendment in that group that adopts the message and its associated message text, reasons and amendments.

  • Messages can be moved between amendments using drag & drop in the Structure View. This may be necessary when an amendment in a group of amendments has been resolved and up until then had been the parent for the messages in that amendment group. You can move these messages to the remaining amendment still in play.

  • It is envisaged you will copy and paste agreed ping pong amendments directly into the message rather than retype them.

House of Commons

  • The Lords now include the Clause/Schedule number in the amendment instruction so when editing amendments to convert them into the Lords format, don’t forget to add the Clause and Schedule (or Long Title) into the instruction as well.

  • When updating new Clause and new Schedule amendments (NCX and NSX amendments), the provision number in the location table will not automatically update. You will need to update both the location field and the Provision field for each new clause/schedule amendment and then drag them into the correct location, inserting an interstitial heading before them as necessary.

  • If you change the clause or schedule number in an amendment, you will need to update the Provision field in the location table on the Amendment Information right-hand panel and then drag them into the correct location, inserting an interstitial heading before them as necessary.