Three MSPs have confirmed they will stand for election to be Holyrood's next presiding officer.

Former Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont announced her candidacy in Tuesday's Daily Record and she was followed later in the day by her colleague Ken Macintosh.

Only one Conservative MSP, John Scott, has officially declared their candidacy.

Fellow Tory MSP Murdo Fraser will announce if he will also enter the race on Wednesday.

Glasgow MSP 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."

West of Scotland MSP Ken Macintosh announced his candidacy by saying he will move Holyrood away from "tribal and partisan" politics.

Macintosh said: "The most important attribute for a presiding officer is to be able to command the respect and trust of all members from all sides.

"I believe it is not enough to win support from your own party colleagues, in many ways, the presiding officer will and should be judged on the confidence shown in them by MSPs from other political parties.

"Just as the First Minister spoke at the weekend of her wish to reach out, what the parliament needs now is someone who can work across the party and political divides, not someone who is likely to exacerbate them.

"I still recall the principles of openness and cross-party working on which the parliament was founded and, perhaps now more than ever, we need a presiding officer who will use those principles to steer us away from the tribal and partisan hostility that has occasionally dominated the chamber in recent years."

Ayr MSP John Scott told the BBC he will bring "fairness" to the role of presiding officer.

He said: "I would aim to bring fairness to the job. That's the thing that's kept me awake at nights in the past, wondering if I've been fair across the board to all members.

"It's been great fun working with everybody and I've enjoyed, in a tacit way, taking part in many of the debates I've presided over in the last five years.

"There's an enormous opportunity for us to take our parliament on again to an even better place."

The election will take place on Thursday among Scotland's 129 MSPs.

If no candidate wins over 50% of the vote a process of elimination will take place with the candidate with the least votes being eliminated from the contest until a candidate wins at least 65 votes.