Hansard is the traditional name for the printed
transcripts of
parliamentary debates in the
Westminster system of
government.
In addition to the Parliament of
the United Kingdom
and the UK's devolved institutions, a Hansard is
maintained for the Parliament of Canada
and the Canadian provincial legislatures, the
Parliament of Australia and
the Australian state parliaments, the national Parliament of
South Africa
and South Africa's provincial legislatures, the
East African
Legislative Assembly, the Parliament of New Zealand, the
Legislative
Council of Hong Kong
, the Parliament
of Malaysia, the Parliament
of Singapore, the Legislative Council of Brunei,
the Parliament of Sri Lanka,
the Parliament of
Trinidad and Tobago, the National Assembly of Kenya, the
National Assembly of
Tanzania, the Parliament of
Ghana, the Parliament of
Uganda, the Parliament of
Mauritius and the Parliament
of Jamaica.
Origins
Before 1771, the British Parliament had long been a highly
secretive body. The official record of the actions of the House
were publicly available, but there was no such record of debates.
The publication of remarks made in the House became a breach of
Parliamentary privilege, punishable by the two Houses. As more
people became interested in parliamentarydebates, more individuals
published unofficial accounts of parliamentary debates. Editors
were at worst subjected to fines. Several editors used the device
of veiling parliamentary debates as debates of fictitious societies
or bodies. The names under which parliamentary debates were
published include
Proceedings of the Lower Room of the Robin
Hood Society and
Debates of the Senate of Magna
Lilliputia.
In 1771
Brass Crosby, who was
Lord Mayor of the City of
London had brought before him a printer called Miller who dared
publish reports of Parliamentary proceedings. He released the man,
but was subsequently ordered to appear before the House to explain
his actions.
Crosby was committed to the Tower of London
, but when brought to trial, several judges refused
to hear the case and after protests from the public, Crosby was
released.
Parliament ceased to punish the publishing of its debates, partly
due to the campaigns of
John Wilkes on
behalf of free speech. There then began several attempts to publish
reports of debates. Among the early successes, the
Parliamentary Register published by John Almon and John
Debrett began in 1775 and ran until 1813.
William Cobbett, a noted radical and
publisher began publishing
Parliamentary Debates as a
supplement to his
Political
Register in 1802, eventually extending his reach back with
the
Parliamentary History. Cobbett's reports were printed
by
Thomas Curson Hansard from
1809; in 1812, with his business suffering, Cobbett sold the
Debates to Hansard. From 1829 the name "Hansard" appeared
on the title page of each issue.
Neither Cobbett nor Hansard ever employed anyone to take down notes
of the debates, which were taken from a multiplicity of sources in
the morning newspapers. For this reason, early editions of
Hansard are not to be absolutely relied upon as a guide to
everything discussed in Parliament.
Hansard was remarkably successful in seeing off competition such as
Almon and Debrett, and the later
Mirror of Parliament
published by J.H. Barrow from 1828 to 1843; Barrow's work was more
comprehensive but he checked each speech with the Member and
allowed them to 'correct' anything they wished they had not said.
The last attempt at a commercial rival was
The Times which published debates in the
1880s. In 1889, the House decided to subsidise Hansard's
publication so that a permanent record was available and it
included more speeches and a near-verbatim record of front-bench
speeches.
The
Hansard of today, a fully comprehensive account of every
speech, began in 1909 when Parliament took over the publication. At the same time
the decision was made to publish debates of the two houses in
separate volumes, and to change the front cover from orange-red to
light blue. A larger page format was introduced with new technology
in 1980.
Hansard in the United Kingdom
Hansard is not a word-for-word transcript of debates in
Parliament. Its terms of reference are those set by a House of
Commons Select Committee in 1893, as being a report
One instance of such an eliminated redundancy involves the calling
of members in the House of Commons. In that House, the Speaker must
call on a member by name before that member may speak, but
Hansard makes no mention of the recognition accorded by
the Speaker. Also,
Hansard sometimes adds extraneous
material to make the remarks less ambiguous. For example, though
members refer to each other as "the hon. Member for
Constituency Name" rather than by name,
Hansard
adds, in parentheses, the name of the member being referred to, the
first time that Member is referred to in a speech or debate. When a
Member simply points at another whose constituency he cannot
remember,
Hansard identifies them.
Interjections from seated members generally are only included if
the member who is speaking at the time refers to it. Any
interruption to debate, whether from the member being shouted down
or the physical invasion of the chamber, will be marked with the
word "(Interruption)".
Hansard also publishes written answers made by Government
ministers in response to questions formally posed by members. Since
1909 — and for important votes before then —
Hansard has
listed how members have voted in
divisions. Furthermore, the proceedings and
debates in committee are also published in separate volumes.
For many years the House of Commons
Hansard did not
formally acknowledge the existence of parties in the House, except
obliquely, with Members' references to other Members of the same
party as "hon. Friends", but in 2003 this changed and members'
party affiliations are now identified.
The
Hansard of the House of Lords operates entirely
independently of its Commons counterpart, but with similar terms of
reference. It covers parliamentary business in the House of Lords
Chamber itself, as well as the debates in the Moses Room, known as
Grand Committee. Parliamentary Written Answers and Statements are
also printed. The reporting staff have been described as "a hive of
revolution and anti-establishment attitudes".
The Internet, with the help of volunteers, has made the UK
Hansard more accessible. The UK
Hansard is
currently being digitised to a high-level format for on-line
publication. It is possible to review and search the UK
Hansard from June 2001, with the exception of Standing
Committees. It is also possible to set up key word email alerts for
topics of interest or to receive emails whenever a given MP speaks
in the Commons or receives an answer to a written question.
Parliamentary privilege
In 1839,
Hansard, by order of the House of Commons
, printed and published a report stating that an
indecent book published by a Mr. Stockdale
was circulating in Newgate
Prison
. Stockdale sued for
defamation but Hansard’s defence, that the
statement was true, succeeded. On publication of a reprint,
Stockdale sued again but Hansard was ordered by the House to plead
that he had acted under order of the Commons and was protected by
parliamentary privilege. In
the resulting case of
Stockdale
v. Hansard
the court found that the House held no privilege to order
publication of defamatory material. In consequence, parliament
passed the
Parliamentary
Papers Act 1840 to establish privilege for publications under
the House's authority.
Hansard in Canada
House of Commons Differences from U.K. practice
As with the Westminster
Hansard, the Canadian version is
not strictly verbatim, and is guided by the principle of avoiding
"repetitions, redundancies and obvious errors." Unlike the UK House
of Commons, members are referred to in the House only by the
parliamentary ridings they represent ("The member for Oak
Ridges-Markham," etc.) or by their cabinet post.
Hansard
supplies an affiliation the first time each member speaks in the
House on a particular day — "
Mr. Paul Calandra (Oak
Ridges-Markham, CPC)" or "
Hon.
Lynne Yelich (Minister of State for Western Economic
Diversification, CPC.)" — and by name only when they rise
later to speak.
If interjections give rise to a call for order by the Speaker, they
are reported as "
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!" The
details of the approval or negativing of motions and bills are
reported in rather baroque detail:
Machine translation
Given the
bilingual nature of
the Canadian federal government, two equivalent Canadian Hansards
are maintained, one in
French and
one in
English. This makes it a
natural
parallel text, and
it is often used to train French-English
machine translation programs. In
addition to being already translated and aligned, the size of the
Hansards and the fact new material is always being added makes it
an attractive
corpus. However, its
usefulness is hindered by the fact that the translations, although
accurate in meaning, are not always literally exact.
The Canadian Hansard records makes note of the language used by the
members of parliament, so as not to misinterpret the words of the
person who has the floor. If the member speaks in French, the
English Hansard records would state that the member spoke in French
and refer the reader to the French Hansard record.
In one instance, during a
Liberal filibuster in the
Canadian Senate, Senator
Philippe Gigantès was accused of
reading one of his books only so that he could get the translation
for free through the Hansard.
British Columbia Hansard practice
Unlike the Ottawa
Hansard, each Member of the Legislative
Assembly is identified only by initial and last name in the printed
Hansard for an opposition member or a government
backbencher: "
J. Horgan." Current
cabinet ministers have their names prefaced with "Honourable":
"
Hon. S.
Hagen."
Interjections giving rise to a call for order by the Speaker are
reported only as "Interjection." Other interjections are reported
as spoken if they are clearly audible and if they are responded to
in some way by the member who has the floor. While the details of
approval or negativing of motions and bills closely parallel the
House of Commons, the reporting is simplified to a style line
("Motion approved" or "Motion negatived.")
See also
Notes
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