UK Parliament records: how to check what MPs and peers said, voted and declared

UK Parliament publishes the official record of the House of Commons and the House of Lords: Hansard, the result of every division, written questions and answers, registers of members' interests, bills and committee evidence. MPs' pay and business costs are published separately by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA). Fact-checkers use these records to confirm what a politician said, how they voted, what they declared and whether a law has passed.

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What it publishes

Hansard, the substantially verbatim report of debates, statements and oral questions in both Houses, with Historic Hansard covering 1803 to 2005.
Division results for the Commons and the Lords, listing every member who voted on each side, searchable by bill, motion, member or date.
Written questions and answers from both Houses, and written ministerial statements, each with a unique reference number, date and answering minister.
The Register of Members' Financial Interests, covering MPs' outside earnings, donations, gifts, visits, property and shareholdings, plus a separate Register of Lords' Interests.
A page for every bill showing its stages in both Houses, each version of the text, amendments, explanatory notes and Royal Assent date.
Select committee inquiries, written evidence, oral evidence transcripts, reports and government responses.
Member profiles for every MP and peer, with constituency, party history, roles, contributions and voting record, plus state of the parties counts by date.
Through IPSA, MPs' salaries since 2010 and every published business cost claim from 2010-11 onwards.

Key datasets

Hansard
Official report of Commons and Lords debates, statements, oral questions and division lists, searchable by keyword, member, date and debate, with older debates linked to the parliamentary archives.
Updated: Every sitting day; Commons reports normally online within a few hours
Historic Hansard
Digitised Hansard for both Houses from 1803 to 2005, browsable by sitting date and person. Useful for checking older quotations and 'first time since' claims.
Updated: Archive (not updated)
Votes in Parliament
Results of every Commons and Lords division with the names of members voting each way, tellers and totals; searchable by title, number, member and date.
Updated: Shortly after each division
Written questions, answers and statements
Every written question tabled in either House with its answer, plus written ministerial statements. Filter by member, department, date and whether answered.
Updated: Daily on sitting days
Register of Members' Financial Interests (editions)
Current and past editions of the Commons register as downloadable files, with each MP's live entries also shown on their profile.
Updated: Updated regularly; fortnightly while the House is sitting
Register of Lords' Interests
Declared interests of every member of the House of Lords, by category, searchable by name.
Updated: Updated as members register changes
Bills before Parliament
Every public and private bill with its stages, text versions, amendments, publications and Royal Assent date. Acts themselves are on legislation.gov.uk.
Updated: Updated as bills progress
Committees
Commons, Lords and joint committees with their inquiries, calls for evidence, written evidence, oral evidence transcripts, reports and government responses.
Updated: Continuous
Find your MP and member profiles
Postcode search for the MP for any UK constituency, linking to their profile, contact details, voting record, contributions and registered interests.
Updated: Updated as membership changes
IPSA: MPs' staffing and business costs
Individual claims, annual spending against budgets and payroll costs for each MP, searchable by name or postcode, from 2010-11.
Updated: Every two months
IPSA: MPs' pay and pensions
MPs' basic annual salary for every year since 2010, additional salaries for committee chairs and the current pay determination.
Updated: Annual, usually from April

APIs and downloads

Parliament developer hub
Directory of Parliament's public APIs with documentation. Data is free under the Open Parliament Licence and no API key is needed for the main APIs.
Members API
JSON API for MPs and peers: names, constituencies, parties, posts, contact details, registered interests, voting and state of the parties for any date. No key required.
Commons Votes API
JSON and XML access to Commons divisions with member-level votes, searchable by date, member and title. No key required.
Lords Votes API
JSON access to Lords divisions and how each member voted. No key required.
Written Questions API
JSON access to written questions, answers and written statements for both Houses, filterable by date, member and department. No key required.
Bills API
JSON access to bills, stages, sittings, publications and amendments; replaces the closed Bills Knowledge Base API. No key required.
Interests API
JSON access to registered interests of MPs by category, with published editions of the register. No key required.
Committees API
JSON access to committees, membership, inquiries, evidence and publications. No key required.
Hansard API
JSON access to Hansard debates, contributions and search across both Houses. No key required.

When it publishes

Hansard is published on every sitting day, with Commons debates normally online within a few hours and division lists soon after each vote. Written answers appear on the questions site once departments submit them, usually the same day. The Commons register of interests is updated regularly, roughly fortnightly when the House sits, and MPs must register new interests within 28 days. IPSA publishes MPs' business costs every two months, covering claims processed four to five months earlier, and announces MPs' pay for the year from April. Parliament's calendar shows sitting days and recess dates.

How to use it to check a claim

For a quotation, find the debate in Hansard by date and member and read the full exchange, noting the column or contribution reference so others can check it.
For 'voted against' claims, open the division in Votes in Parliament and confirm what the question was: second reading, an amendment, or a procedural motion can all be described as 'voting on the bill'.
Check who did not vote as well as who did, and remember that absence is not an abstention on the record; pairing and government business explain many missing names.
When a minister's figure comes from a written answer, cite the question reference number (UIN) and date, and check whether a correction was later attached.
For claims about an MP's outside earnings or gifts, use the register edition current at the time of the claim, because entries are removed twelve months after the interest ends.
For expenses claims, use IPSA's data and check the financial year and budget heading; staffing costs are the largest share of most MPs' totals.
To check whether something 'is now law', confirm Royal Assent on the Bills site and then read the Act's commencement section on legislation.gov.uk.
Quote committee findings from the report itself and witness statements from the evidence transcript, and attribute each accordingly.

Common mistakes

Treating a Commons vote as the final decision, when the bill still needs Lords approval, Royal Assent and commencement.
Reading a missing name in a division list as a deliberate abstention.
Describing a witness's evidence to a select committee as the committee's own conclusion.
Comparing MPs' business costs as if they were personal spending, when most of the money pays staff and office rent.
Counting 'MPs with second jobs' without saying which register categories were included, such as one-off media fees, rental income or unpaid roles.
Quoting a party's seat count from election night when by-elections, defections and suspensions have since changed the state of the parties.

Is Hansard word for word?

Hansard is described as substantially verbatim. Reporters remove repetitions and obvious mistakes and may correct grammar, but they do not change the meaning or add anything that was not said. Members can suggest corrections to their own words, but only to make the report accurate, not to change what they argued. For broadcast-level precision, the video on Parliament's own coverage of proceedings can be compared with the text.

Can I download how every MP voted?

Yes. Votes in Parliament lets you open any division and export the list of members voting each way, and the free Commons Votes and Lords Votes APIs return the same data in JSON for use in spreadsheets or code. No key is needed. The Members API can add each member's party and constituency on the date of the vote.

Where are MPs' pay and expenses published?

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) sets MPs' salaries and pays and publishes their staffing and business costs. Its website lists the salary for each year since 2010 and every published claim from 2010-11, searchable by MP or postcode. Members of the Lords are not salaried, and their allowance claims are published by the House of Lords.

How far back do Parliament's online records go?

Historic Hansard covers debates from 1803 to 2005, and the current Hansard site holds recent proceedings and links to archives for some earlier years. Older registers of interests and other papers are held by the Parliamentary Archives. Machine-readable data through the APIs mostly covers recent decades, so check each API's date range before relying on it for long-run comparisons.

Questions answered using this source

Links checked 2026-10-13. This page describes what the source publishes and gives no verdict on any claim.