• 123 topics

Parli Debate Topics

Parliamentary debate motions, worded the way a house words them.

Parli Debate Topics

This house regrets the five-star review.

Government proposes, Opposition replies. Tap a side for every raised hand.

Next step Try short SPAR topics

All 123 topics

This house would 32

  • This house would ban advertising on school grounds. A) Government. School is the one place a child is not a customer. B) Opposition. Sponsors pay for kits and scoreboards that budgets cannot.
  • This house would build no new road until every street has a sidewalk. A) Government. Fix what people walk on before adding more to drive on. B) Opposition. Growing towns need new roads now, not after a long audit.
  • This house would cap the homework a school may set each night. A) Government. A limit forces teachers to set only what matters. B) Opposition. Teachers know their classes. One cap cannot fit every subject.
  • This house would charge a deposit on every bottle and can. A) Government. People return what is worth money to return. B) Opposition. It is a daily chore that hits those without a car hardest.
  • This house would end every school day with a sport or a game. A) Government. The last hour is the sleepy one. Use it to move. B) Opposition. Not everyone likes sport, and a tired class heads home late.
  • This house would end every tied game with a deciding play. A) Government. Fans came for a result. Give them one. B) Opposition. A draw is an honest result between two equal teams.
  • This house would fund libraries before stadiums. A) Government. A library serves every age on every day of the year. B) Opposition. A stadium brings visitors and pride that a library does not.
  • This house would give every student one free period a day. A) Government. Free time teaches planning better than any lesson. B) Opposition. An unplanned hour becomes an hour on a phone.
  • This house would give every student one no-questions day off a term. A) Government. A day you choose is rest that comes when you need it. B) Opposition. Everyone picks the Friday before a break, and class stops.
  • This house would give every town a tool library. A) Government. One drill can serve a street. Let people borrow it. B) Opposition. Borrowed tools come back broken, late or not at all.
  • This house would give every worker one paid day a month to volunteer. A) Government. Towns gain help, and workers gain perspective. B) Opposition. Small firms cannot spare the staff.
  • This house would have the whole school read one book each year. A) Government. One story gives every grade something to talk about. B) Opposition. No single book suits a six-year-old and a sixteen-year-old.
  • This house would hold one school day a week entirely outdoors. A) Government. Science, sport and art all have more room outside. B) Opposition. Rain, cold and wandering minds would cost a fifth of the week.
  • This house would keep delivery trucks out of the city center by day. A) Government. Streets for people at noon, deliveries when roads are empty. B) Opposition. Night deliveries wake everyone who lives above a shop.
  • This house would let residents name the streets of a new neighborhood. A) Government. People care for a place they helped to name. B) Opposition. A public vote picks joke names that last a century.
  • This house would let students mark each other's work. A) Government. Marking a classmate's work shows what good work is. B) Opposition. Friends mark friends kindly. The grade means less.
  • This house would let students set the lunch menu. A) Government. People eat what they chose, and less goes in the bin. B) Opposition. The vote would be pizza, every day, forever.
  • This house would let the crowd choose the player of the match. A) Government. Fans paid to watch. Let them say who was worth it. B) Opposition. A crowd picks whoever scored. The best player often defended.
  • This house would make every restaurant offer a half portion. A) Government. Less waste, lower prices and no pressure to finish. B) Opposition. Two sizes of every dish double the work in a small kitchen.
  • This house would make every sports final a best of three. A) Government. One bad bounce should not decide a season. B) Opposition. A single final is why the whole world watches.
  • This house would make repair manuals public for everything sold. A) Government. If you own it, you should be able to fix it. B) Opposition. Makers lose their designs, and bad repairs cause accidents.
  • This house would make the last year of school a year of projects. A) Government. A year of real work is the best bridge to adult life. B) Opposition. Students would lose the habits that classes and exams build.
  • This house would open every school assembly with a speech by a student. A) Government. Public speaking is learned by doing it in front of people. B) Opposition. An assembly is a hard first audience for a nervous speaker.
  • This house would pay students for perfect attendance. A) Government. Showing up is the first habit of work. Reward it. B) Opposition. It pays sick children to come to school.
  • This house would plant a tree for every child born in the city. A) Government. Each child grows up with a tree, and the city gets its shade. B) Opposition. Trees need decades of care that a ceremony does not fund.
  • This house would put a bench on every city block. A) Government. A place to sit opens a street to the old and the tired. B) Opposition. Benches cost money to maintain, and some blocks have no room.
  • This house would put a bike rack on every bus. A) Government. Bus plus bike gets you door to door without a car. B) Opposition. Loading bikes slows every stop for every rider.
  • This house would put a shelf of free books at every bus stop. A) Government. A ten-minute wait is a chapter. Put books where the wait is. B) Opposition. One wet week and the shelf is pulp. Someone has to restock it.
  • This house would replace homework with thirty minutes of reading. A) Government. Reading for fun does more than another worksheet. B) Opposition. Math and languages need practice that reading cannot give.
  • This house would switch off street lights after midnight. A) Government. Dark skies return, and the power saved is real. B) Opposition. People who work late still have to walk home.
  • This house would turn empty shops into free community workshops. A) Government. An empty window helps nobody. A workshop gives a street life. B) Opposition. Owners lose the chance to rent when business returns.
  • This house would turn one parking space on every street into a tiny park. A) Government. A bench and a tree do more for a street than one parked car. B) Opposition. Parking is short already, and shops depend on it.

This house believes that 30

  • This house believes that a city's best building is its train station. A) Government. Every visitor sees it first, and the whole city uses it. B) Opposition. Stations are for leaving. A city's heart is where people stay.
  • This house believes that a good question is worth more than a good answer. A) Government. A question opens a field. An answer closes one. B) Opposition. Questions are easy to ask. Answers take the work.
  • This house believes that a longer school day should replace homework. A) Government. Work gets done where help is, and evenings are free. B) Opposition. A long day leaves no time for sport, music or rest.
  • This house believes that a museum should let visitors touch the exhibits. A) Government. A thing in the hand teaches more than one behind glass. B) Opposition. A thousand hands a day would wear any object to nothing.
  • This house believes that a tidy city is less interesting than a messy one. A) Government. Markets, murals and odd corners give a city its character. B) Opposition. Clean and orderly streets are ones people feel safe to use.
  • This house believes that amateur sport is better to watch than professional. A) Government. Amateurs play for love, and you can know them by name. B) Opposition. Professionals show what the human body can really do.
  • This house believes that cars have done cities more harm than good. A) Government. They took the street from the people who lived on it. B) Opposition. Cars let families live and work where they chose.
  • This house believes that cities should grow up, not out. A) Government. Tall buildings save farmland and shorten every trip. B) Opposition. Families want a yard, and towers crowd the schools and parks.
  • This house believes that competitive sport is good for children. A) Government. It teaches effort, teamwork and how to lose. B) Opposition. It teaches most children that they are not good enough.
  • This house believes that every child should have a chore of their own. A) Government. Being needed at home builds pride. B) Opposition. Childhood is short. Work comes soon enough.
  • This house believes that every student should fail at something once. A) Government. Better to learn to recover at school than at work. B) Opposition. Failure cannot be scheduled. Arranged failure teaches nothing.
  • This house believes that everyone should learn a far-off language. A) Government. It is a window onto a world you would never otherwise see. B) Opposition. A language with nobody to speak it to fades in a year.
  • This house believes that grades measure effort more than learning. A) Government. Homework, attendance and neat work all feed the grade. B) Opposition. You cannot pass a hard test on effort alone.
  • This house believes that honest feedback is kinder than polite praise. A) Government. Praise that hides a problem lets the problem grow. B) Opposition. Harsh truth makes people stop asking for feedback.
  • This house believes that how a team wins matters more than whether it wins. A) Government. A win by cheating or bullying is a loss for the sport. B) Opposition. The scoreboard is the only judge both teams agreed on.
  • This house believes that it is better to be a specialist than a generalist. A) Government. Depth is what people pay for and what moves a field forward. B) Opposition. New ideas come from people who can connect two fields.
  • This house believes that learning poems by heart still deserves class time. A) Government. A poem you carry in your head is yours for life. B) Opposition. Reciting is not understanding. Spend the time on reading.
  • This house believes that local news matters more than national news. A) Government. The school board and the bus route shape your actual day. B) Opposition. The big decisions that change everything are made far away.
  • This house believes that memorizing facts still matters in an age of search. A) Government. You cannot think with facts you have to stop and look up. B) Opposition. Knowing how to find and check a fact is the newer skill.
  • This house believes that nostalgia holds people back. A) Government. People who long for the past stop building the future. B) Opposition. Remembering what was good tells you what is worth keeping.
  • This house believes that public art earns its place in a city budget. A) Government. A mural or a statue is the one gallery everyone walks past. B) Opposition. Fix the roads and the roofs first, and then decorate.
  • This house believes that public buildings should be chosen by open contest. A) Government. Open contests find ideas a committee would never ask for. B) Opposition. Contests reward the boldest drawing, not the best building.
  • This house believes that school should teach how to learn first. A) Government. Facts change. The habit of learning lasts. B) Opposition. You cannot practice learning without something to learn.
  • This house believes that science fiction predicts better than forecasts. A) Government. Stories imagine how new machines will feel to live with. B) Opposition. Stories are built to thrill, not to be right.
  • This house believes that the best ideas come from people new to a field. A) Government. Newcomers ask the question the experts stopped asking. B) Opposition. Experts know which bright ideas were tried and failed.
  • This house believes that the best inventions solve small problems. A) Government. The zipper and the paper clip are used by everyone, every day. B) Opposition. The engine and the light bulb changed what a day could hold.
  • This house believes that the best teachers are the strictest ones. A) Government. Clear rules make a room where everyone can work. B) Opposition. Fear makes students hide what they do not understand.
  • This house believes that the hardest subject should come first in the day. A) Government. Minds are freshest at nine. Spend that on the hard thing. B) Opposition. A hard start sours the day. Let a class warm up first.
  • This house believes that the printed book will outlive the screen. A) Government. A book needs no battery and still opens in a hundred years. B) Opposition. Screens took the news, the mail and the map. Books are next.
  • This house believes that video games deserve a place in the classroom. A) Government. A game teaches systems by letting you break them. B) Opposition. The game becomes the point and the lesson gets lost.

This house regrets 21

  • This house regrets fast fashion. A) Government. Clothes made to be thrown away waste work and cloth. B) Opposition. Cheap clothes let every family dress well.
  • This house regrets the bucket list. A) Government. It turns life into a checklist of other people's ideas. B) Opposition. A list gets people off the couch and onto the trail.
  • This house regrets the celebration of the lone genius. A) Government. Big discoveries stand on the work of many hands. B) Opposition. Stories about one person make children want to be scientists.
  • This house regrets the decline of free play outdoors. A) Government. Children once made their own rules with no adult in sight. B) Opposition. Organized activities teach skills that a vacant lot cannot.
  • This house regrets the decline of the neighborhood shop. A) Government. The shopkeeper knew your name, and the street had a center. B) Opposition. Bigger stores brought lower prices and more choice.
  • This house regrets the decline of the shared family meal. A) Government. The table was where a family heard about each other's day. B) Opposition. Families still talk in the car, on walks and by message.
  • This house regrets the decline of the town square. A) Government. It was the one place every kind of neighbor crossed paths. B) Opposition. People now gather where they choose, with those they choose.
  • This house regrets the endless scroll. A) Government. A page with no end takes hours nobody chose to give. B) Opposition. It shows people what they like, and they can stop.
  • This house regrets the five-star review. A) Government. Everything gets four and a half, so the stars say nothing. B) Opposition. A stranger's warning can save you from a bad purchase.
  • This house regrets the forty-minute lesson. A) Government. By the time the room settles, the bell rings. B) Opposition. Short lessons fit how long anyone can really concentrate.
  • This house regrets the habit of filming concerts on phones. A) Government. You watch the best night of the year through a small screen. B) Opposition. The video is how you get to relive it and share it.
  • This house regrets the highlight reel. A) Government. Ten seconds of goals hide ninety minutes of the real game. B) Opposition. Highlights bring in fans who would never sit through a match.
  • This house regrets the idea that talent is something you are born with. A) Government. Children who believe it stop trying at the first hard thing. B) Opposition. Telling everyone they can do anything lets people down.
  • This house regrets the multiple-choice test. A) Government. It rewards a good guess and never asks you to explain. B) Opposition. It is quick and fair, and it is marked the same for everyone.
  • This house regrets the open-plan office. A) Government. Nobody can think with forty conversations in earshot. B) Opposition. Walls hid people from each other and from new ideas.
  • This house regrets the praise of being busy. A) Government. A full calendar is not the same as a useful day. B) Opposition. Busy people get things done. Somebody has to.
  • This house regrets the pressure to turn every hobby into a side job. A) Government. A hobby you must sell stops being rest. B) Opposition. Being paid for what you love is most people's dream.
  • This house regrets the ranking of schools. A) Government. A single number hides what a school is good at. B) Opposition. Families deserve some way to compare.
  • This house regrets the read receipt. A) Government. A message once could wait. Now silence looks like an insult. B) Opposition. Knowing it was seen saves a second message.
  • This house regrets the rise of the remake. A) Government. Money spent on a retold story is not spent on a new one. B) Opposition. Each generation gets to meet a great story in its own time.
  • This house regrets the suburb built around the car. A) Government. Nothing is in walking distance, so every errand is a drive. B) Opposition. It gave families space, quiet and a yard they could afford.

This house prefers 18

  • This house prefers a great teacher in a poor building to the reverse. A) Government. The teacher is the lesson. The walls are not. B) Opposition. A cold, crowded room wears down even the best teacher.
  • This house prefers a hard game played badly to an easy game played well. A) Government. You learn at the edge of what you can do. B) Opposition. Doing a thing well is its own reward, and a joy to watch.
  • This house prefers a house full of books to a house full of screens. A) Government. Books sit still and let a mind wander. B) Opposition. A screen holds every book, plus the music and the films.
  • This house prefers a museum of failures to a museum of successes. A) Government. Seeing what went wrong teaches more than a row of trophies. B) Opposition. People come to be inspired, and success is what inspires.
  • This house prefers a quiet expert to a loud team player on a group project. A) Government. The work gets done right. B) Opposition. A team that does not talk hands in four separate projects.
  • This house prefers a school with a great library to one with a great gym. A) Government. A library serves every student in every subject. B) Opposition. A gym is the one room where every student moves.
  • This house prefers a school with no grades to a school with no homework. A) Government. Without grades, students work to understand, not to score. B) Opposition. Free evenings help every student, every day.
  • This house prefers a slow train to a fast plane. A) Government. The journey becomes part of the trip. B) Opposition. Time is the one thing a traveler cannot buy back.
  • This house prefers a three-day weekend every week to a longer summer break. A) Government. Rest comes every week, when you need it. B) Opposition. A long summer is when trips, jobs and camps happen.
  • This house prefers a town with one great park to a town with ten small ones. A) Government. A big park has room for a lake, a field and a crowd. B) Opposition. A park you can walk to in five minutes is the one you use.
  • This house prefers a world in which every message takes a day to arrive. A) Government. People would write with care and wait with patience. B) Opposition. Urgent news and small kindnesses both need speed.
  • This house prefers a world in which every town grows most of its own food. A) Government. Fresh food, short trips and a town that can feed itself. B) Opposition. No oranges in the north, and one bad harvest means hunger.
  • This house prefers a world in which everyone can play one instrument well. A) Government. Any room could become a band. B) Opposition. Practice takes time, and listening is a joy too.
  • This house prefers a world in which everything is sold without packaging. A) Government. Nothing to throw away, and you see what you buy. B) Opposition. Food spoils and goods break on the way home.
  • This house prefers a world in which memories can be shared like photographs. A) Government. You could show someone exactly what you saw. B) Opposition. A memory that can be passed around is no longer private.
  • This house prefers a world in which sport has no professionals. A) Government. Everyone plays, and nobody is priced out of a seat. B) Opposition. Without full-time athletes, nobody ever sees the best.
  • This house prefers a world in which white lies are impossible. A) Government. Trust would be complete. A compliment would always be true. B) Opposition. Kindness sometimes needs a soft answer.
  • This house prefers reading one book ten times to reading ten books once. A) Government. You only see how a great book works on the third read. B) Opposition. Ten books are ten different worlds.

Light motions 22

  • This house believes that a spoon is the only utensil anyone needs. A) Government. It scoops, it stirs and it never stabs anyone. B) Opposition. Try eating a salad or cutting a pancake with one.
  • This house believes that a tail would be more useful than a third arm. A) Government. Balance, a spare hook and a way to show your mood. B) Opposition. A third arm can carry the shopping and open the door.
  • This house believes that cats are plotting something. A) Government. The stare. The shelf-clearing. The 3 a.m. sprints. B) Opposition. A plot takes planning. Cats nap most of the day.
  • This house believes that penguins are overdressed. A) Government. A tuxedo, every day, to go fishing. B) Opposition. They live at the coldest party on Earth. Dress accordingly.
  • This house believes that socks with sandals are a bold and correct choice. A) Government. Warm toes and a breeze. It is engineering. B) Opposition. Sandals exist so that feet can skip the socks.
  • This house believes that the best superpower is finding a parking space. A) Government. Flying is rare. Parking is daily. B) Opposition. Nobody ever made a movie about a parking space.
  • This house believes that the egg came before the chicken. A) Government. Something had to hatch first. B) Opposition. Something had to lay it.
  • This house believes that the moon is better than the sun. A) Government. You can look right at it, and it changes shape. B) Opposition. The sun does all the work. The moon just turns up at night.
  • This house believes that the sequel is never as good as the original. A) Government. The surprise is gone, and the story was already told. B) Opposition. A second chapter can go deeper with people you already know.
  • This house believes that the wheel is overrated. A) Government. Legs, boats and sleds were doing fine. B) Opposition. Name one thing in this room that reached it without wheels.
  • This house prefers a world in which pets can talk for one hour a day. A) Government. You would finally learn what the barking was about. B) Opposition. An hour of complaints about dinner, every single day.
  • This house regrets the alarm clock. A) Government. No day should begin with a fright. B) Opposition. Without it the day begins at noon, with an apology.
  • This house regrets the invention of the group chat. A) Government. Two hundred messages to choose a restaurant. B) Opposition. Without it, nobody would know where the restaurant is.
  • This house would abolish the necktie. A) Government. It is a ribbon whose only job is to be uncomfortable. B) Opposition. It is the one piece of color a suit is allowed.
  • This house would ban Mondays. A) Government. No one has ever missed one. B) Opposition. Tuesday would simply become the new Monday.
  • This house would let the youngest in the room make the rules for a day. A) Government. Bedtime at midnight and dessert at noon, for one day only. B) Opposition. By two in the afternoon everyone needs a nap and a vegetable.
  • This house would make every Friday pajama day. A) Government. Comfort is the reward for getting through the week. B) Opposition. By the third Friday it is just what people wear.
  • This house would make nap time compulsory for adults. A) Government. Kindergarten had it right, and afternoons would be kinder. B) Opposition. An adult told when to sleep will lie there making lists.
  • This house would rename the days of the week after desserts. A) Government. Nobody dreads a day called Sundae. B) Opposition. Seven desserts cannot be agreed on in one lifetime.
  • This house would replace the handshake with the high five. A) Government. It is quicker and happier, and there is no awkward grip. B) Opposition. Try high-fiving at a job interview.
  • This house would require every speech in this debate to rhyme. A) Government. A rhyme sticks in the mind long after the vote. B) Opposition. We oppose, in prose, and that is how it goes.
  • This house would swap the summer and winter breaks. A) Government. A long break when it is too cold to do anything else. B) Opposition. Nobody wants to sit in class through the best weather.

How it works

These parli debate topics are 123 practice motions for parliamentary debate, sorted by how they open: This house would, believes, regrets or prefers. Each card gives Government and Opposition an opening line. None is any league's official motion.

Read the full guide

British parliamentary debate topics

British Parliamentary puts four teams of two on one motion, two on the Government bench and two on the Opposition, so a motion needs room for more than one case. This house regrets (21) and This house prefers (18) have it: This house regrets the five-star review. This house prefers a world in which white lies are impossible.

American parliamentary debate topics

American parli is two against two, with twenty minutes to prepare and no quoted evidence, so every motion here can be argued from general knowledge. This house would holds 32 with a plan to defend: This house would charge a deposit on every bottle and can. This house believes that holds 30 value motions.

  • Run a motion twice with the benches swapped. Arguing the side you just beat is the quickest practice there is.

Questions and answers

What are good parliamentary debate topics for middle school?

The 14 Easy cards outside Light motions, nearly all about school: This house would let students set the lunch menu. This house would hold one school day a week entirely outdoors. This house believes that the hardest subject should come first in the day.

What are high school parliamentary debate topics?

The Medium and Hard cards, which weigh one good against another: This house would switch off street lights after midnight. This house regrets the ranking of schools. This house believes that cars have done cities more harm than good.

What are funny parli debate topics?

Light motions holds 22 for a warm-up or the last round of a long day: This house would ban Mondays. This house believes that cats are plotting something. This house would require every speech in this debate to rhyme.

How long do speakers get to prepare a parli motion?

It depends on the format. In American parliamentary debate the motion is announced and teams get twenty minutes; at British Parliamentary's largest championships speakers get fifteen minutes' notice.

More tools

Show 6 more

Browse Question Games