Currently Parliament publishes new bills on the internet in PDF and HTML format. MySociety's
proposal envisages an initial XML structure for parsing bills, amendments and explanatory notes that would include types, such as:
- Name of MP who introduced the bill
- Subheadings, sub-sub headings etc
- Clauses, sub clauses, etc
- Paragraphs, sub paragraphs etc
- Names of other bills or acts and their paragraph and clause numbers.
In parallel with the existing method of publication, the documents would be copied to an external server, where they would be parsed by a script into XML according to this schema.
The output would be checked visually, and if necessary corrected on screen, by a parliamentary official, who would then publish the document on the external server for third party re-use.