What is Parlianet?

[ The Database | Search Options | Analysis Options | Additional Services ]

The Database

The data published on Parlianet is taken from official sources under a unique license with the House of Commons.

Parlianet is an index to the proceedings and publications of both Houses of Parliament in Westminster going back to 1979. Plus other information sources used by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

It also includes material from the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly. At this time no material from the Scottish Parliament is included. We hope to add this information as soon as possible and subscribers will be kept informed of developments.

Parlianet includes:

Parliamentary Questions

An archive of all questions by MPs to Ministers in the House of Commons including private notice questions, all questions put in the House of Lords, and all answers to written questions in the House of Commons from 1997 onwards.

Parliamentary Proceedings

Proceedings in the House of Commons and House of Lords with references to Hansard, Votes and Proceedings (Commons) or Minutes (Lords), Standing Committees and text of Early Day Motions.

Parliamentary Papers

House of Commons and House of Lords Bills, Private Bills, Select Committee minutes of evidence and reports from the UK Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales. Command Papers and Unprinted Command Papers, papers from the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

Legislation

Public General Acts, Local and Personal Acts, Statutory Instruments laid before the UK Parliament.

Bill Histories

One record for each public bill, providing a complete history in code-and-date format of its passage through Parliament.

Official Publications

Stationery Office publications, departmental publications, press notices and circulars.

International and Foreign Official Publications

Publications from the UN, the Foreign Office and relevant international organisations.

European Communities

History of legislative proposals and other selected documents.

Library Collection

Books and pamphlets, audio-visual material, periodical articles and papers deposited by Ministers in the libraries of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

Library Papers

Background papers, research notes and papers, fact sheets, and miscellaneous material from the libraries of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

Search Options

Search Wizards

Parlianet's search wizards help you to find information quickly and easily. You can trace obscure or unfamiliar data, or even discover material that you never knew existed. The wizards act as prompts, giving you drop-down menus and step-by-step choices, leading you to precisely the results you need.

For example:

• Researching Parliamentary Questions
• Monitoring your MP's parliamentary activities
• Tracking Legislation
• Finding specific Official Publications

Advanced Searches

Answers to difficult or unusual enquires may be found using the Advanced Search feature. All searchable fields are available, with full drop-down menus of all options. You may interrogate the entire database at once, or create a complex query using a series of key search terms.

Free Text Searches

If you don't want to bother with fields, or if you wish to search for something obscure, you may quickly search the entire Parlianet database using just a single word or phrase. The Free Text search option should also be used if you need to use the full power of Boolean operators.

Saved Searches

Parlianet allows you to store an unlimited number of searches to be re-run at a later date, saving you the effort of having to enter the same search criteria each time. The Saved Searches feature is especially useful if you run frequent, complex searches.

Downloading and Emailing Documents

After you have carried out a search, you may download selected documents to your computer for reading offline. You may also send documents to colleagues by email. Documents may be sent in either RTF (Rich Text Format, suitable for use in word processors) or HTML (Hypertext Markup Language, suitable for use in both Web browsers and word processors).

Parlianet also includes additional services and a glossary of parliamentary terms and traditions.

Analysis Options

Parlianet provides you with a wide range of display and analysis options designed to make your research more effective.

When you have assembled the information you need, Parlianet's sophisticated analysis options can turn the raw data into meaningful, attractive and presentable reports. For instance, you can produce graphs showing the number and type of questions asked of different Government departments over several sessions or parliaments. Or you could analyse topics of interest by party, gender of MP or constituency.

Just looking at the numbers will indicate trends and provide useful background intelligence for briefing Ministers, timely lobbying, or news reporting.

Item Counts

With Parlianet's Item Counts (spreadsheets) feature, data can be sorted and analysed using a variety of different filters or criteria, such as member name, subject, constituency, party, gender and time interval. Up to three breakdown levels are available to enable highly detailed and precise analysis of your results.

Graphs and Charts

The graphs and charts feature of Parlianet aids understanding and can make a powerful contribution to statistical arguments. For example, if you are comparing questions asked about flood management with those about flood disasters, the relationship can be visualised and presented much more convincingly using a graphical display.

You can choose to display your data using three different types of chart: bar charts, pie charts and line charts.

Exporting and Printing

Counts, charts and graphs may be copied and pasted into Word documents for further manipulation. Graphs and charts may also be printed directly from Parlianet and Item Counts downloaded to your computer as .CSV files, suitable for use in most spreadsheet programs.

Additional Services

In addition to the main Parlianet database you will have access to the following services:

• Bills before Parliament
• What’s On in Parliament?

Bills before Parliament

This area of the service provides a daily update of primary legislation as it makes its way through all the institutions of the UK which have the power to make such legislation, that is Westminster (both the Commons and the Lords), the Scottish Parliament and the new Northern Ireland Assembly.

The Bills before Parliament section has a number of benefits over the House of Commons Weekly Information Bulletin, which provides information regarding the proceedings of the passage of Bills through Westminster for the week ahead. The principal advantages of the Bills before Parliament section are currency and coverage:

• Updated on a daily basis, using the proceedings of Parliament as reported by Hansard, on the day that Hansard is posted on the Web.
• Contains every Bill for all the devolved administrations while the Weekly Information Bulletin only covers the Bills introduced by Westminster.
• Includes draft Bills from Westminster and proposed Bills from the Scottish Parliament.
• Gives you a breakdown of the history of the Bill from when it was first introduced to when it either receives Royal Assent or when it fails.