Former Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont has entered the contest to become Holyrood's next presiding officer.

Lamont, who would be the first presiding officer from the Labour benches, announced her candidacy in an article written for the Daily Record.

Lamont said: "Devolution has changed rapidly since the Scottish Parliament was created in 1999. More and more powers have come and allowed us to have a bigger influence in people's lives.

"But our parliament structures have not kept pace with that rapid change. Our committees do not have the influence we envisaged for them, our parliamentary process does not always allow us to scrutinise the Government and we don't achieve the transparency and openness we need.

At the moment, our Scottish Parliament is not doing a good enough job of holding the Government to account."

She continued: "We can't carry on as normal and here is why: the last Scottish Government identified three areas where they wanted to make Scotland better. Our over-consumption of alcohol, sectarianism at football and protecting vulnerable kids. They were all areas where most people agreed the need for action.

"The three pieces of legislation produced to tackle them - minimum pricing, offensive behaviour and named person - were well-intentioned but they were all flawed and faced vehement opposition.

"I believe if the parliamentary process had worked better, we could have produced better legislation which could have united the parliament and found confidence within the public. When my colleagues come to decide who is best to preside over our fifth session, I hope they will see in me a strong, principled person who cares about our parliament and about making it work for the people of this country."

Scotland's 129 MSPs will vote for the next presiding officer on Thursday at 2.30pm with the result being declared at 3.15pm.

If Lamont is elected as presiding officer this would still require the SNP to gain two seats over the course of the next parliament to have a working majority. If they only gained one MSP it would take their tally to 64, the same number as all opposition parties' MSPs combined.

In the event of votes being tied the presiding officer by convention votes not to change the law but votes in favour of the status quo.

Before entering the Scottish Parliament in 1999 Lamont worked as a teacher and believes that maintaining order in Holyrood will be a "piece of cake" compared to "Friday afternoon in a classroom".

Later on Tuesday a second Scottish Labour MSP, Ken Macintosh, also declared his candidacy.