Demotion rules

These are the detailed rules that govern how the demote function works in Bills, Acts and SI/SSIs. See Promoting and demoting provisions for general help.

Bills and Acts

Provision	Conditions	Rule
Subsection or Schedule subparagraph Definition Step	There is a sibling of the same kind immediately before the provision and Contains no sub-sub-paragraph child elements	Provision will be ‘demoted’ into a paragraph, copying over any text If the provision had child elements, they will remain child elements with the following additional change: Sub-paragraphs will be converted ‘down’ a single level
Paragraph		Provision will be ‘demoted’ into a sub-paragraph, copying over any text If the paragraph had any child elements, these will remain child elements with the exception that a sub-paragraph would be converted to a sub-sub-paragraph
Sub-paragraph		Provision will be ‘demoted’ into a sub-sub-paragraph, copying over any text
Closing words		Provision will be ‘demoted’ into a sibling of the provision immediately before the closing words, copying over any text.

SI/SSIs

Provision	Conditions	Rule
Paragraphs with numbering format (1) or Schedule subparagraph Definition Step	There is a sibling of the same kind immediately before the provision and Contains no paragraph child elements with number format (aa)	Provision will be ‘demoted’ into a paragraph with the numbering format (a), copying over any text If the provision had child elements, they will remain child elements with the following additional change: Lower level paragraphs with numbering format (i) will be converted ‘down’ a single level unless they are children of a child definition or step
Paragraphs with the numbering format (a)		Provision will be ‘demoted’ into a paragraph with the numbering format (ii), copying over any text If the paragraph had any child elements, these will remain child elements with the exception that a paragraph with the numbering format (i) would be converted to a paragraph with the numbering format (aa) unless they are children of a child definition or step
Paragraphs with the numbering format (i)		Provision will be ‘demoted’ into a paragraph with numbering format (aa), copying over any text
Closing words		Provision will be ‘demoted’ into a sibling of the provision immediately before the closing words, copying over any text.
Bullet lists	there is a sibling of the same kind immediately before the bullet list being demoted	The bullet list item and all its child bullet list items will be demoted to become a bullet list at the level down
Paragraph lists in Explanatory notes and Preamble	there is a sibling of the same kind immediately before the provision and Contains no paragraph child elements with number format (aa)	The paragraph list item and all its child paragraph list items will be demoted to become a paragraph list at the level below – converting the numbering e.g. from (a) to (i) and (i) to (aa)