Debate or discussion in parliamentary procedure

Parliamentary procedure

Parliamentary procedure is the body of rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings and other operations of clubs, organizations, legislative bodies, and other deliberative assemblies...

 refers to discussion on the merits of a pending question; that is, whether it should or not be agreed to. Robert's Rules of Order

Robert's Rules of Order

Robert's Rules of Order is the short title of a book containing rules of order intended to be adopted as a parliamentary authority for use by a deliberative assembly written by Brig. Gen...

 notes that "Debate, rightly understood, is an essential element in the making of rational decisions of consequence by intelligent people." Indeed, one of the distinguishing characteristics of a deliberative assembly

Deliberative assembly

A deliberative assembly is an organization comprising members who use parliamentary procedure to make decisions. In a speech to the electorate at Bristol in 1774, Edmund Burke described the English Parliament as a "deliberative assembly," and the expression became the basic term for a body of...

 is that "It is a group of people, having or assuming freedom to act in concert, meeting to determine, in full and free discussion, courses of action to be taken in the name of the entire group."

Under RONR, the right of members to participate in debate is limited to two ten-minute speeches per day on a question; Riddick's Rules of Procedure

Riddick's Rules of Procedure

Riddick's Rules of Procedure is a parliamentary authority - a book explaining the parliamentary procedure, including the rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings and other operations of the United States Senate. It was written by Floyd M. Riddick and co-authored by Miriam Butcher...

 also specifies a default limit of ten minutes. However, these limitations can be loosened or tightened through motion (parliamentary procedure)

Motion (parliamentary procedure)

In parliamentary procedure, a motion is a formal proposal by a member of a deliberative assembly that the assembly take certain action. In a parliament, this is also called a parliamentary motion and includes legislative motions, budgetary motions, supplementary budgetary motions, and petitionary...

s to limit or extend limits of debate

Limit or extend limits of debate

-Explanation and Use:-Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised:The default norm is allowing each member of a deliberative assembly to make two ten-minute speeches, with a requirement that a member wait for other members who have not spoken on the question to speak before making his second speech.-The...

; or to go into a committee of the whole

Committee of the Whole

A Committee of the Whole is a device in which a legislative body or other deliberative assembly is considered one large committee. All members of the legislative body are members of such a committee...

 or quasi committee of the whole, or to consider informally a measure; or to adopt a special rule of order or standing rule

Standing rule

A standing rule is a rule that relates to the details of the administration of a society and which can be adopted or changed the same way as any other act of the deliberative assembly. Standing rules can be suspended by a majority vote for the duration of the session, but not for longer....

 changing the limitations on debate.

Mason's Manual provides that in state legislative bodies:
Some motions are not debatable. This includes most secondary motions that are applied to undebatable motions.