About the Scottish Parliament

The Standing Orders are the rules of procedure for the Parliament.

The current version of the Standing Orders is the 7th Edition (published 11 May 2026).

On 21 May 2026 the Parliament agreed to motion S7M-00150. As a result, some Rules in Chapters 2, 11 and 13 of the Standing Orders have been suspended or varied in order to facilitate changes to the Parliamentary week proposed by the Presiding Officer as part of his “renewal and re-engagement” initiative. These arrangements took effect on 29 May 2026 and may remain in effect until 31 January 2027. To view the Standing Orders in their permanent form, follow the link above for the PDF version, or links under the heading “Contents” for the HTML version.

On 17 June 2026 the Parliament agreed to motion S7M-00378, which further suspended and varied Rules in Chapter 11. These arrangement took effect on 22 June 2026 and may remain in effect until 31 January 2027.

To view Chapters 2, 11 and 13 as they currently apply, follow these three links:

Chapter 2: Meetings of the Parliament (96KB, pdf) posted 04 June 2026

Chapter 11: Decisions and voting (154KB, pdf) posted 04 June 2026

Chapter 13: Statements and Parliamentary questions (156KB, pdf) posted 04 June 2026

When changes are made to Standing Orders, this is referred to as a Revision. The Revisions are numbered in the order in which they are issued (1st Revision, 2nd Revision, etc.).

This page contains the:

7th Edition of the Standing Orders (2MB, pdf) posted 07 May 2026

For copies of the Standing Orders from a previous session, please contact the Standards Clerks: [email protected].