5.1 As soon as a motion has been lodged, amendments may be lodged with the Chamber Desk. Amendments to motions are subject to the same admissibility criteria as motions and are printed in the Business Bulletin (Rule 8.5.5). The Presiding Officer will select which, if any, amendments are to be taken in the debate on the motion (Rule 8.5.6). While a Member may lodge an amendment at any time after the motion has been admitted, only amendments lodged with the Chamber Desk no later than 4.30 pm on the day before the debate appear in the Business Bulletin. Any amendment received after that time will not normally be printed in the next day’s Business Bulletin.

5.2 If an amendment to a motion (or an amendment to an amendment) is lodged on the day when the relevant motion is due to be taken, or after the printing deadline for the Business Bulletinthe previous day, the Chamber Desk will immediately send a copy of the amendment to the Presiding Officer. If the Presiding Officer agrees that the amendment should be taken, the daily business list section of the Business Bulletin will be re-issued to include the new amendment. Alternatively, in urgent cases, an addendum may be issued setting out the text of the amendment only. If the Presiding Officer does not agree that the amendment should be taken, the Member will be informed accordingly. The amendment will not be printed in Section A of the Business Bulletin.

5.3 Members may support amendments under the same procedures as set out for motions in paragraph 2.26.

Wording, Style and Layout of Amendments to Motions

5.4 The following conventions apply to the wording of amendments to motions—

• they should begin “[name of Member]: [title of motion], as an amendment to motion S3M-xx in the name of [Member who lodged motion]”
• they should “leave out” and/or “insert” words 
• to insert words, it should use the forms: “after “word” insert “new words”” or “insert at end” “new words”” 
• to re-word entirely a motion beginning “That the Parliament believes…”, the amendment should read “… leave out from “believes” to end and insert “new words”” (if the word “believes” occurs more than once, use “leave out from first “believes””).
• where a Member seeks to make two or more separate changes to the wording of a motion, for example they wish to leave out some words in the first line of a three-line motion, and insert new words in the third line, then all the text between the two insertion points should be deleted and then re-inserted by means of the amendment.

5.5 Examples of amendments to motions are given below—

Motion—
That the Parliament notes the Guidance on Motions and directs that the document be published and made available to every Member of the Parliament.

Amendments—
(a)  leave out “notes” and insert “commends”
(b)  leave out from “notes” to “document” and insert “believes that the Guidance on Motions and the Guidance on Parliamentary Questions are useful reference documents and directs that the documents”
(c)  insert at end “and published on the Parliament’s website”
(d) leave out from “notes” to end and insert “commends the Guidance on Motions and directs that the document be published and made available to every Member of the Parliament and on the Parliament’s website”.

Amendments to Amendments

5.6 Amendments to a motion may themselves be amended (Rule 8.7). Such amendments should be worded in the same way as amendments to a motion but beginning “[name of Member]: [title of motion], as an amendment to amendment S3M-xx.1) in the name of [Member who lodged amendment], …”. It can be procedurally complex to deal with amendments to amendments. Clerks may therefore seek to encourage Members to lodge an alternative amendment to the original motion, rather than an amendment to an amendment already lodged. Amendments to an amendment are usually appropriate only where the amendment to the amendment involves changing or adding only a word or two, as the prime purpose of an amendment to an amendment should be to make a specific change or build on a proposition. In particular, an amendment to an amendment should not leave out the entire text of an amendment and replace it with new text. Nor should its purpose be regarded solely as a device to secure a vote at Decision Time. If amendments to amendments were taken on this basis the potential for retaliatory amendments to amendments would be almost infinite.

Pre-emption of Amendments

5.7 In wording amendments Members should take account of whether their amendment can be pre-empted if another amendment taken before it is agreed to. An amendment is pre-empted if:

• the text in the motion that it amends would no longer be in the motion if an earlier amendment was agreed to. Thus in the example in paragraph 5.5 above, if an amendment that leaves out from “notes” to end and insert “believes …” is carried, all other amendments in the format leave out from “notes” to end will be pre-empted as “notes” is not in the motion as amended.
• the consequent resolution would have contradictory or incompatible statements contained within it. For example if amendment 1 called for action on a matter and amendment 2 then called for an opposite action, it would not be competent for them to be part of the same resolution.
• the amendment would result in a substantive motion that altered the original intention of the amendment.

The Presiding Officer will not put the question on an amendment if it has, in his opinion, been pre-empted by the Parliament’s earlier agreement to another amendment to the same motion.

Selection and Order of Amendments

5.8 The Presiding Officer balances the following criteria when selecting amendments—

• the extent to which the amendment has supporters other than the mover of the amendment;
• the number of competing amendments;
• the content of the amendment, in terms of its relevance to the subject matter of the motion; and
• whether the amendment alters significantly the content of the motion.

In addition, the Presiding Officer takes into account any other factors that he considers appropriate.

5.9 The Presiding Officer also seeks to ensure that, over time, the proportion of amendments selected from opposition parties reflects their share of opposition representation in the Parliament. Executive amendments to opposition motions would normally be selected. When selecting amendments from a large number of admissible amendments, the Presiding Officer pays particular regard to the third and fourth bullet points above.

5.10 Where the Presiding Officer has decided that more than one amendment should be taken by the Parliament, they will appear in print immediately following the original motion, indented to show that they are subsidiary items. They normally appear in order based on the size of the party on whose behalf the amendment is lodged, with the amendment from a Member of the largest party taken first. With amendments to an opposition group motion, an amendment on behalf of the Executive will be listed first. Amendments to an amendment, in turn, appear immediately following the amendment to which they relate, further indented, in the order in which they relate to that amendment. For example—

S3M-100 Mr Joe Bloggs: Loch Ness Research—That the Parliament regrets the recent allocation by the Institute of Lost Causes of research funding to establish whether the Loch Ness Monster exists.

S3M-100.1 Dr Jane Spires: Loch Ness Research—As an amendment to motion S3M-100 in the name of Mr Joe Bloggs, leave out from “regrets” to end and insert “regards the allocation of public funds to the “Nessie Research Project” as a scandalous waste of public money.”

S3M-100.1.1 Mr Tom Wilkie: Loch Ness Research—As an amendment to amendment S3M-100.1 in the name of Dr Jane Spires, leave out “scandalous” and insert “outrageous.”

S3M-100.2 Mr Peter McTaggart: Loch Ness Research—As an amendment to motion S3M-100 in the name of Mr Joe Bloggs, leave out “regrets” and insert “welcomes.”

5.11 An amendment to a motion on the list referred to in paragraph 2.25 above will be included on that list. If a motion falls or is removed from that list, the amendment to that motion falls.