This blog will be looking at how to reference reports from the Hansard series. There are in fact three series of this, the first of which is for debates from the House of Commons, the second for debates from the House of Lords and the final one for debates in the Public Bill Committees of the House of Commons, after these replaced standing committees in 2007. Hansard also reports on the select committees of both Houses, as well as joint committees of these, but this will be discussed in a later blog.
I will first be looking at what each of these different series is and what it contains, then explaining how to reference them using OSCOLA, with examples.
What are the Hansard reports?
The Hansard reports are a transcript of debates from Parliament which are treated as accurate. They are a record of everything that has happened in Parliament, spanning back to the 18th century in various different forms. Parliament took over the publication of it in 1909 and employed staff to act as the official reporters.
They are not actually verbatim account; some changes are made to improve clarity. For example, mistakes made by people speaking, such as grammatical errors, may be corrected. Members of the House of Commons must be addressed by the Speaker before they can speak, but the Hansard reports leave out this mention, as it is not a necessary or important part of the debate in transcript form.
Members will also address each other as “the hon. Member for [Constituency Name]”, rather than by name, but the Hansard reports add this in brackets to make things clearer and more accessible to the public. Likewise, if a Member does not know another Member’s constituency and simply points, the Hansard reports will identify the other Member.
These days, the Hansard reports are available online for free, whereas in the past, you might have had to have paid a subscription to view them. They can be seen at Hansard’s website, where they are also now searchable, making it a lot easier to find a specific part you were looking for!
It is also updated very quickly – a rolling version is available where you can see what has been said within three hours of it being spoken. This version will then be collated the following morning, with further functionality. This makes it very easy to check what is going on in Parliament at any given time and exactly what was said during the debate for a piece of legislation.
What are the Different Types of Report?
The first series of Hansard report is for debates from the House of Commons. This is the transcript of the proceedings in the Commons Chamber and Westminster Hall, as well as written ministerial statements, petitions and ministerial corrections. This will include details of any votes taken and answers to questions asked. The Commons Hansard staff are responsible for this.
The next series is the debates from the House of Lords, which is the transcript of proceedings from the Lords Chamber and Grand Committee, as well as written ministerial statements and written answers to questions. They will also have details of votes taken and are the responsibility of the Lords Hansard staff.
The last Hansard series is for reporting on Public Bill Committees of the House of Commons since 2007. Before this, it was instead for standing committees, which were then replaced by the Public Bill Committees. This report is also written by the Commons Hansard staff.
How Do You Reference the Different Types of Report?
Now, we will look at how to reference the different types of Hansard and parliamentary report.
Debates of the House of Lords and the House of Commons
Firstly, we will consider these two series of Hansard reports as they are referenced in a very similar way and can be looked at together. The basic format is:
HL Deb OR HC Deb | Date, | Volume, | Column
For example:
HC Deb 3 February 1977, vol 389, cols 973–76.
The HL Deb or HC Deb refers to either House of Lords Debate or House of Commons Debate, so use whichever is appropriate. The date is the full date in the format DD Month YYYY, as shown in the example above. The Volume and Column should be written with the abbreviations vol and col respectively. There is more detail on citing a range of numbers in my blog OSCOLA Referencing Introduction and Quick Summary.
If you need to reference one of the written answers from the House of Commons, this is indicated by a “W” after the column number, without a space:
HC Deb 4 July 1996, vol 280, col 505W.
If the written answer is from the House of Lords, this is indicated by a “WA” before the column number, again without a space:
HL Deb 21 July 2005, vol 673, col WA261.
Public Bill Committees of the House of Commons
To reference a Public Bill Committee, use the basic format:
Bill | Date, | Column
For example:
Health Bill Deb 30 January 2007, cols 12–15.
This is very similar to the format for the first and second series: start with the name of the Bill, then the date in the same format DD Month YYYY, then the column number. There should not be a volume number for a Public Bill Committee.
If the Bill has a very long title, you can just write the abbreviation PBC Deb, followed by the Bill number in brackets. For example, the example above would be written as:
PBC Deb (Bill 99) 30 January 2007, cols 12–15.
This makes it clearer for the reader but still allows them to easily look up the correct source from the reference.
Old Standing Committees
If you need to reference a debate from one of the old Standing Committees, use the format:
SC Deb (A) 13 May 1998, col 345.
As you can see, this is much the same as the one used for the current Public Bill Committees.
Wrapping Up
I hope that this blog has helped you with your referencing. Next time we will be looking at how to reference debates from the Select and Joint committees of the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
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