Hansard

This article is about transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries. For parliamentary debates of legislative bodies, see Debate (parliamentary procedure). For the concept of transcripts of legislative bodies in general, see Transcripts of legislative bodies.
For other uses, see Hansard (disambiguation).

Hansard is the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official printer to the Parliament at Westminster.

The UK's Hansard is not verbatim; it omits repetitions and redundancies and corrects obvious and grammatical mistakes, while attempting to maintain the meaning of all speeches. As MPs refer to each other by the name of their constituency, Hansard identifies MPs by name. Canada's Hansard is published in both English and French, noting the original language a member used.

Attempts in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to publish Westminster parliamentary reports were met with government repression. From 1809, Hansard ran as independently published reports, although it was not comprehensive, first employing reporters in 1878. The Parliamentary Papers Act 1840, extended parliamentary privilege, including against English defamation law, to publications under Parliament's authority. In 1909, Parliament took over Hansard publication, beginning comprehensive accounting of all speeches with an official reporter staff.

Other Hansard transcripts are published for the legislatures of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, as well as for the legislatures of the states of Australia and provinces of Canada.

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