BRITISH PARLIAMENTARY MANUAL

INTRODUCTION TO BRITISH PARLIAMENTARY FORMAT

(BP TRAINING MANUAL PDF)

Prepared and Edited by Josiah Adiema Adiema

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 BRITISH PARLIAMENTARY MANUAL

INTRODUCTION TO BRITISH PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES

The British Parliamentary academic debating format is the official format of the World Universities
Debating Championships. As the name suggests, the format has its roots in the British House of
Commons, an institution of government that served as a model for academic debating in British
universities. Since its adoption by the WUDC, the format has spread around the world and is now the
most widely practiced format of intercollegiate debating.
The teams in a BP round cooperate using a very similar approach. Two teams, known as the Opening
Proposition/government and Closing Government are responsible for arguing on behalf of the topic,
known as a motion in BP debating. Two more teams—the Opening Opposition and Closing Opposition—
are responsible for arguing against the motion. However, all these four teams are in competition with
each other even if they argue from the same bench i.e. the opening government and closing
government seek to outwit each other in as much as they put concerted efforts to beat the opposition
and true is the vice versa.
Each of these teams is comprised of two debaters, each of whom will give one seven-minute speech
beginning with the first speaker for the Opening Proposition/Government (known as the Prime Minister)
and alternating between the Proposition and Opposition until each debater has spoken.
TEAM SPEAKER TIME
Opening Government - Prime Minister 7 minutes
Deputy Prime Minister 7 minutes
Closing Government - Member of Government 7 minutes
Government Whip 7 minutes
Opening Opposition - Opposition Leader 7 minutes
Deputy Leader of Opposition 7 minutes
Closing Opposition - Member of Opposition 7 minutes
Opposition Whip 7 minutes
ORDER OF SPEECHES
Prime Minister Opposition Leader

Deputy Prime Minister Deputy Opposition Leader

Member of Government Member of Opposition

Government Whip Opposition Whip

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SPEAKER ROLES IN THE BP DEBATE FORMAT
GOVERNMENT
Prime Minister (PM):
 Define and Set Up the Debate
 Provide Parameters (Context within which
the motion is debated)
 To Provide the Status quo analysis
 Provide the government’s position, work
plan and policy
 Provide Argumentation in support of the
government position and in support of the
motion
Deputy Prime Minister (DPM)
 Defend the Prime Minister
 Rebut the Leader of Opposition
 Provide New Arguments
Member of Government (MOG)
 Provide Extension to Government Case
 Show the clear way how it will be
implemented
 Rebut Opening Opposition, with special
attention to the Deputy Leader of
Opposition
Government Whip (GW)
 Rebut Extension of Closing Opposition
 Defend your Extension
 Identify and Analyze Major Clashes in the
debate and show why your team and
bench wins
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OPPOSITION
Opposition Leader (OL):
 Examine the definition by the PM
 Reframe the debate in oppositions view
 Provide the Opposition Approach
 Rebut the Prime Minister’s Case and
Speech
 Provide Argumentation to Oppose the
Motion
Deputy Opposition Leader (DOL)
 Defend the Leader of Opposition
 Rebut the Deputy Prime Minister
 Provide New Arguments
Member of Opposition (MOO)
 Provide Extension to Opposition Case
 Show the clear way how it will be
implemented
 Rebut Opening and Closing Proposition,
with special attention to Extension of
Closing government
Opposition Whip (OW)
 Defend your Extension
 Rebut the Government’s
 Identify and Analyze Major Clashes in the
debate and show why your team and
bench win.
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FRAMING THE DEBATE

1. Set the tone of the debate AND preempt the other side
2. Debates are never about ‘just the individual arguments’ – don’t forget the bigger picture!
3. Angling the debate (if applicable); explain from whose POV the debate taking place? THW
legalize Walk to Work: Who is the house?
4. Setting a context and ‘painting a picture’ of the world in which the debate is taking place
5. These backgrounds/views of the world are called frames. Of course, the frames change
depending on what stance you’re taking. It’s all about marketing your view of the world.
6. Focus on sustainable trends that are favorable for your side. Include important details like
recent events, agreements reached, etc.
Example: THBT contraceptive use is safe
1. Extreme argumentation: Safe means no harm will come to all who use it
2. Reasonably gray argumentation: Safe does not mean absolutely no harm, but that relatively very
small negligible proportion of those who use contraceptive will NOT be all right. This definition on “Safe”
applies to things like extreme hormonal imbalances or allergies – not 100% certain, but reasonably
certain that precautions have been taken to inform people of all possible risks and that the risks have
been reduced/stopped.
7. While absolutes are bad, troubleshoot contradictions too. A contradiction is when one of
your arguments/premises refutes another one of your own arguments/premises.
1. Example; in defending affirmative action for women in parliament:
2. First Speaker: argues there should be AA because women are talented enough, they just don't get
what they deserve because they are cheated by the system
3. Second Speaker: You should have AA because the most talented are men and, as such, women have
no chance of getting in unless you impose a quota for women
Core of the Debate
1. Identifying the ‘core debate’ and what the other side is expected to argue (if applicable). When you
hear a motion or a topic to be discussed (for papers, projects, etc.) the first thing to ask is: WHAT IS THE
CORE DEBATE? What is the meat of the “conflict” in the motion?
2. There can be many “Core Debates” – an issue can have more than one crucial clash (points of
difference (Points of stasis). However, it is important to isolate one or two of the biggest ones to start
the thinking process
3. Example; THBT abortion should be legalized
1. Core Debate: Right of the Woman over her body vs. the child’s right to life (or the Church/state’s right
to protect the unborn child’s life)

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POINTS OF INFORMATION (POIs)

During each of these speeches, debaters from the opposite side are required to ask for the opportunity
to interrupt the speaker holding the floor. These interruptions are known as Points of Information (or
POIs).
They are short interjections, questions or statements taken at the discretion of the debater holding the
floor. A debater may request the opportunity to present a Point of Information (either verbally or by
rising) from a speaker on the opposite side of the motion at any time after the first minute, and before
the last minute, of any speech. The debater holding the floor may accept or refuse POIs at his or her sole
discretion.
If accepted, the debater asking the POI has approximately fifteen seconds to make a statement or ask a
question. During the Point of Information, the speaking time continues to run. Following the POI, the
primary speaker resumes her speech and is expected to integrate her response to the POI into her
speech material. Debaters are judged both on their efforts (successful or not) to offer POIs and to
respond to POIs.
It’s important to realize right from the start that fundamentally the POI is an attacking tool. It is too
short to develop an argument or really defend yourself. Use it to punch holes in the opposite team.
A POI should be short – two sentences or 15 seconds long. Some judges will time your POIs. If you have
long drawn out POIs, the person speaking may cut you off (quite justifiably) and ask you to sit down,
which leave you embarrassed and ineffective.
A POI can be:
 A question – This is the most effective use of a POI since asking a question forces the
speaker to respond with an answer. Not being able to respond is a sign of weakness.
Often with the nicely crafted question you will get the speaker to say what you want
them to say; which is exactly what they don’t want to say.
 An example or piece of evidence – also very powerful. Not something the speaker can
just ignore or assert away and must deal with. Ensure the example is clear and linked to
an argument you delivered.
 A statement – a short powerful statement can be very effective. Don’t just reassert
yourself though, as the speaker will just assert the opposite
 Not offering POIs indicates an implicit acceptance of what a speaker is saying or that
your team is inactive or afraid. Not taking POIs indicates that you are afraid of
something the speaker might have to say or are insecure about your arguments. So ask
and take POIs – they are not optional.
Asking POIs
The Killer Point of Information
 There is a myth that POI exists that is so powerful; it will stop a speaker’s speech. Make
him quit debating.
 It’s not a myth, such POI exists. But it’s incredible rare and not worth waiting for. POIs
are as best used as a machine gun, rapidly picking holes in the opposition, rather than a
bazooka that will blow them away. Ask POIs often and try to make every one of them
difficult to deal with. Use them to force concessions, pick holes in logic, increasing
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pressure to defend the difficult arguments, shaping the direction of the direction,
forcing speakers to deal with your arguments and more fun things! You should increase
the damage of POIs by referring to it in your speech.
General Tips
 Ask POIs often, but with respect; emphasized in the Killer POI point above, but worth
mentioning again.
 Ask POIs as often as you can. However, respect the speaker and don’t harass them. It
makes you look bad and doesn’t endear you to the judges. It’s annoying for the person
trying to listen to the speech if someone keeps interjecting.
 Wait at least 20 second between each POI and don’t say anything except “Point of
Information”.
 Write down your POI before asking it. This prevents asking a long, convoluted POI or
forgetting the
 POI when you stand up to ask it. A written POI can also be shaped and shortened to be
simple and clear. Short POIs are always better than long ones – they are easier to
understand and give the speaker less time to think of a suitable response.
 Lastly, a written POI is something you can share with your partner.
 Don’t be Vague. The quality of the response is dependent on the quality of the question.
 If you ask a vague question, you will get a vague response. Statements that just re-assert
your position (“We clearly argued why this is wrong and you are not saying anything
about it”) or express your frustration (“How can say such terrible things, don’t you
believe in Human Rights??”).
 Vague POIs like (“I don’t understand your case, can you please explain what you
mean?”) are quite useless. Be specific – refer to a specific argument or confusion, ask
questions that lead to answers you want. Imagine you were the speaker – what would
you say in response to your question?
 Refers to good POIs in your speech. If a POI from your team does damage or is un-
responded to, expand on it in your speech. Show the speakers lack of your engagement
and your strong involvement in the debate.
 This works better for closing teams (and is also more important, in order to show that
they were involved in the opening half of the debate) and only if you ask a POI. You may
do this for another team on your bench, if you decide beating the opposite team is
critical and you can afford to make your bench-mate look good.

POI Strategies
 Forcing speakers to defend their logic: Speakers often make throwaway statements and
assert arguments. Don’t let them get away with it. However, don’t get up and just ask
them to explain themselves. Maybe they don’t see the error of their logic or are
naturally confusing speakers – asking them to repeat themselves would mean just more

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confusion and asserted logic or better still giving them chance to make amends and beat
you.
 Refer to their argument and show that their logic does not apply by extending that logic
or providing an example. In a debate about giving citizenship to prisoners at
Guantanamo, the speaker argues one of the benefits is; this will allow civilian trials
which are better than military trials, and then proceeds to argue why civilian courts are
awesome and military courts are evil.
 As a speaker on the opposite team you don’t have to defend military courts, but ask
why citizenship is required before initiating civilian trials.
 Forcing speakers to defend examples: Offer an example that contradicts the argument
the speaker is making. “You claim the right to free speech is absolute but why do many
liberal governments ban hate speech?”
 Also force speaker to defend their own examples. Once a team presents an example,
they must defend it. If they drop it, it’s like dropping an argument – they concede it’s
not important.
 Attack details of examples if you think that will change the main principle of that
example. Don’t nitpick – if
 A speaker says 500 Billion was too much to spend on bailing out AIG, don’t correct him
and say it was only 450 Billion. You still haven’t changed the fact that it’s a lot of money.
 Leading questions – stuck between a slippery slope and a contradiction, ask speakers
about a situation or a position that is not directly related but share many of the same
principles. The speaker must be able to say why the situation you present is significantly
different and thus his principle does not apply, or the speaker must include the situation
under his principle, thereby expanding the case.
 For example, in a debate about legalizing torture say “Let me give you an example, the
government team argues terrorists should be tortured because they might have
information that could save hundreds of lives”. The basic principle here is that when
someone has critical information, we will use any means to extract it. Extend this
principle to another situation that is less emotive than terrorism – perhaps a hostage
situation or kidnapping. Ask the speaker if we would also torture kidnappers – they then
either have to extend their principle (creating a slippery slope) or say kidnappers are
different and try not to contradict themselves.
 Clarification questions: When asking for clarification, don’t ask the speaker to repeat
themselves. Instead, give them options and force them to choose.
do you want to do to Iran? You just keep saying they are bad – please propose
something!” say “Sir/Ma’am, are you proposing to invade Iran, increase sanctions or do
nothing?” Whatever his answers is, it will help your prepare opposition case.
 The Double POI: Some speakers try to ask two POIs in one. This is risky because it will
make the POI long and confusing. A POI is not about how much you can squeeze in 15
seconds – the speaker and the judge need to understand it for it to be effect. I would
generally advise against this.

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 If you are going to do this, you have to be very clever and minimalist. You can start with
a quick reminder or reassertion of a previous attack and then ask your main question.
For example “You still haven’t addressed our extension, but tell me, if this program is so
effective, why did it fail in China?”
 Forcing contradictions between teams You force contradictions in logic by asking
leading questions, but also use it to force contradictions between teams. Ask the closing
team a question that extends a principle or idea from the opening team’s case, or ask
them explicitly to clarify something the opening team said. Closing teams sometimes try
to ignore bad stuff the opening team said in the debate. They are not responsible for it,
but are responsible to at least try and manage the bad PR.
NOTE: All Speakers should
 Offer Points of Information
 Take at least 1, but preferably 2 Points of Information (from the Opening and Closing
Halves)
 Defend their teammates (or bench-mates)
 Engage the Previous Speaker(s) (Except the Prime Minister)
Note that the above are not Rules of BP debate, but rather what each speaker should do in order to be a
responsible debater. This means
(a) Being as responsive as possible
(b) Working as a team and defend the integrity of your case
(c) To contribute equally to the debate
On New Matter
The Government Whip speaker is technically allowed to bring new arguments into the debate but
usually doesn't as arguments this late in the debate rarely has a strong impact on the debate. His or her
time is better spent analyzing what happened in the debate. The Opposition Whip is not allowed to
bring new arguments into the debate. This is called New Matter. New Matter is a wholly new line of
argumentation and does not include new rebuttals, new evidence or development of previously
mentioned arguments.

Things to remember during prep/Important questions that should be answered Nature of the Debate
 There is no strictly proposal or value-judgment debates. All debates are a combination
of both. However, some debates require you to discuss more extensively certain policy
mechanisms compared to others (ex. THW grant citizenship to illegal immigrants vs.
THBT cosmetic surgery hurts the women’s movement).
 Therefore, it has to be clear whether you are proposing anything new in the debate,
rejecting status quo, or assessing some broad, commonly understood policy. Note that
the level of abstraction of the policy affects your case – and adjust accordingly.
 Imagine if you insisted on debating THW grant affirmative action for women in
parliament as a strictly value-judgment debate!

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What is an extension?
The origin of the extension comes from the actual workings of a parliamentary government system.
Often, when there are multiple parties forming a coalition government, there may be a particular piece
of legislation that is supported by different parties, and for different reasons. Analogously, in BP debate,
the extension is additional support for a particular bench (government or opposition) from a new
perspective.
In Basic Terms: After the opening half of the debate, particular issues were well canvassed by both
benches. As such, it would be superfluous for the closing teams to merely stand up and rehash the
arguments that have already been contested thoroughly. If that were the case, it would be too easy and
we don’t like easy! As such, the job of the closing teams is to ‘extend’ the debate to a new, uncontested
issue or to substantially develop an issue which the opening half merely glanced over.
In Practical Terms: In reality, the debate does not play out as described above. There is a tendency for
good opening teams to ‘matter steal’. That is, they try and cover all the major issues in the debate
(sometimes superficially) so that the closing teams are without any new matter. This is where the fun
begins.
Closing teams need to be flexible and creative. They need to look for common threads underlying the
opening half, areas insufficiently developed and entirely new avenues of argument.
2. Types of extensions
For the sake of completeness, I will review the two main types of extensions.
a) Analytical extension
 This is the only extension you ever realistically have to worry about. It is when you
extend the debate by introducing new arguments or substantially better, thorough
analysis of issues that were glossed over in the opening half. The general idea is to take
the debate to a new level.
A sign that you do not have a good extension is if you end up reciting verbatim the speeches of the
opening half and resurrecting their arguments.
b) Policy extensions
 In your travels, you may come across policy extensions, so it is prudent to be aware of
what it is so that you can destroy teams that use them in future. A policy extension is
where you present additional policy or merely expand on the details of the policy
already presented.
 DO NOT DO THIS. We are not in the business of policy debating. In BP, policy extensions
tend to be the easiest to obliterate. That is, they are generally not based on any
principled argumentation and add very little more to the debate itself. It is wiser not to
take the road less travelled in this case, and stick to the tried and tested analytical
extension.
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