Hansard is the name of the official reports of the proceedings of the British Parliament. Hansard reports the texts of the proceedings of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords verbatim (word for word), except for minor editing to delete repetitions and to correct obvious errors. His Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) publishes the reports daily when Parliament is in session, and also issues weekly and periodic collections of reports. The full title is Parliamentary Debates (Hansard).
In 1803, William Cobbett, a British journalist and politician, began publishing edited reports of parliamentary debates. In 1811, he sold his rights to his printer, Thomas Curson Hansard, and the reports continued under the title Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates until 1892. Various other firms published the reports until 1909, when HMSO began publishing them.
See also United Kingdom, Government of the (Recording of Parliament).
