The debate motion bank

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Curated sets for the way practice actually gets planned: by what you are teaching this week, not by keyword.

A dozen of the newest motions in the bank, from the 2026 season.

1. 01

   This House believes that Bulgaria should adopt a progressive tax system

   2026 · WUDC 2026 · Round 1

2. 02

   This House prefers a world where all religions prohibited visual depictions of the divine over a world where such depictions were central to all religions

   2026 · WUDC 2026 · Round 2

3. 03

   This House, as the leadership of a major news organisation (e.g., The Economist, CBS, The Washington Post), would adopt moralised journalism as a stance

   2026 · WUDC 2026 · Round 3

4. 04

   This House believes that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's rise to power has been good for Saudi Arabia

   2026 · WUDC 2026 · Round 4

5. 05

   This House opposes the popularisation of social justice speak

   2026 · WUDC 2026 · Round 5

6. 06

   This House believes that it is in the interests of the American people for the US government to acquire golden shares in strategically important firms (e.g., NVIDIA, MP Materials, US Steel)

   2026 · WUDC 2026 · Round 6

7. 07

   This House opposes the use of user-specific algorithms to deliver on-demand content for entertainment (including but not limited to: the pipeline of short-form videos on TikTok or Instagram, personalised suggestions on YouTube or Netflix)

   2026 · WUDC 2026 · Round 7

8. 08

   This House predicts that the developing world will become more, rather than less, democratic over the next decade

   2026 · WUDC 2026 · Round 9

9. 09

   This House believes that domestication* has done more harm than good for non-human animals (*of pets, livestock, etc.)

   2026 · WUDC 2026 · Partial Double Octofinals

10. 10

    In times of crisis, This House believes that central banks should use their direct credit allocation mechanisms to provide sectors with high positive externalities* easier credit access (*e.g., green tech, infrastructure, healthcare)

    2026 · WUDC 2026 · Octofinals

11. 11

    This House supports the modern revival of the Monroe Doctrine

    2026 · WUDC 2026 · ESL Quarterfinals

12. 12

    This House opposes the use of historical and religious narratives as justification for modern territorial claims

    2026 · WUDC 2026 · Quarterfinals

Browse the rest in the 2026 archive.

Year archives from 2011 onward, grouped by tournament. Useful for seeing what the circuit debated during a season, or for pulling recent motions your opponents have not seen either.

• 2026 (268)
• 2025 (616)
• 2024 (519)
• 2023 (356)
• 2022 (335)
• 2021 (2,432)
• 2020 (1,821)
• 2019 (599)
• 2018 (563)
• 2017 (408)
• 2016 (610)
• 2015 (449)
• 2014 (958)
• 2013 (1,141)
• 2012 (736)
• 2011 (299)

1. 1

   Filter before you shuffle. Pick the topic your team is weakest in, or the motion type you have not debated this month, then shuffle inside that filter. Random practice on a weakness beats random practice on everything.

2. 2

   Run the real prep hour. Sixty minutes, no internet, printed materials only. Our 1-hour prep planner gives you the minute-by-minute structure; the bank gives you an endless supply of motions to run it on.

3. 3

   Prep both sides before you pick one. Ten minutes sketching proposition and opposition teaches you more about a motion than an hour on one side, and it is exactly what tournament day demands.

4. 4

   Finish with adjudication. A round without feedback is just talking. Judge on the 40/40/20 criteria and give one action item per speaker.

Useful companions: the 1-hour prep planner, the guide to the four motion types, and the World Schools glossary.

The bank is compiled from public records: tournament tab sites (including the Tabbycat archives that most major tournaments publish), the official World Schools Debating Championships motion archive, and the openly licensed hello-motions research dataset started by Jessica Yung. Motion text is kept verbatim from the source, including info slides where the tournament released one. Records are deduplicated across sources, and topic labels come from the source data with keyword-based tagging filling the gaps. Spot a motion credited to the wrong tournament, or a missing one you can source? Tell us and we will fix it.

Are these real debate motions?

Yes. Every motion in the bank was set at a real tournament and comes from a public record: tournament tab sites, the official World Schools Debating Championships motion archive, and the openly licensed hello-motions research dataset. We do not generate motions with AI or invent them in-house.

Are these motions suitable for World Schools debate?

Most are. The bank includes motions from World Schools tournaments (including every Worlds motion since 1994, which you can filter for) alongside motions from British Parliamentary and other formats. BP motions are standard practice material for World Schools teams: the topics, burdens, and clash are the same, and coaches across the circuit train with them.

What is an info slide?

An info slide is a short paragraph of background released with a motion, defining a term or describing a situation the debate depends on. Around 3,400 motions in the bank carry their original info slide, and you can filter for them when you want prep practice that starts from a briefing.

How should my team practice with the motion bank?

Pick a motion with the shuffle button or a topic filter, run a real 60-minute prep against the clock, then debate the round and judge it on the 40/40/20 criteria. Rotate motion types week to week (policy, value, actor, regret) so your first regret motion at a tournament is not your first regret motion ever.

How is this different from other motion databases?

Three things: every motion lives on fast, readable pages rather than inside an app you have to query; the World Schools Debating Championships archive is complete back to 1994 with prepared and impromptu rounds labeled; and each topic page comes with coaching notes on how that kind of debate is won, written by coaches who train the format year-round.