find-member-contribution

name

find-member-contribution

description

Retrieve what a named member of either House said in a specific Hansard debate. Use this skill whenever the user asks "what did <peer/MP> say about <topic>", "find <member>'s contribution to the <bill> debate", "did <name> speak on <date>", or "quote <name>'s speech on <subject>". This skill must be used for any peer-or-MP-specific Hansard query — text-searching Hansard by member name returns unrelated debates and is the most common failure mode.

/find-member-contribution

1. Resolve the member_id first: call parliament_find_member(name=...).
2. Search Hansard by topic or bill name — NOT by member name: parliament_search_hansard(query=...).
3. Retrieve contributions filtered by member: parliament_get_debate_contributions(debate_ext_id=..., member_id=...).
4. If multiple debates returned, retrieve contributions from each and present in date order.
5. Tag every contribution [uk-legal MCP — Hansard] with a full column citation.

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Purpose

Retrieve verbatim Hansard contributions by a named peer or MP for a specific debate, bill, or topic. The principal failure mode for this task is text-searching Hansard directly by member name — that returns debates where the name appears incidentally, not the member's own contributions. This skill addresses it: resolve member_id first, search by topic second, filter by member_id third.

Workflow

Source discipline: If a uk-legal MCP tool returns empty or errored (status: empty / not_found / upstream_validation / etc.), do NOT supplement from training data or web search. Report the empty result to the user with the tool's next_steps / detail field surfaced, and ask for clarifying information (different spelling of a name, a date range, the source URL) rather than fabricating a plausible-looking answer. Empty results are HONEST signal — not a failure mode to paper over.

Step 1 — Resolve the member_id

Call parliament_find_member(name=...) using the name or title the user provided.

• If multiple members match (e.g. "Lord Smith" matches several peers), list all candidates with their full parliamentary titles and ask the user to disambiguate.
• If parliament_find_member returns empty or not_found, the name or title may be incomplete or misspelled — ask the user for the member's full parliamentary title and do not proceed to Step 2 without a confirmed member_id.

Step 2 — Find the debate

Call parliament_search_hansard(query=...) using the BILL NAME or TOPIC the user mentioned — NOT the member's name. The tool returns up to four debates with debate_ext_id, sitting_date, and house.

• If the user provided a specific date, pass it as filters.date to narrow results.
• If no debates match the initial query, try a broader or alternative term before reporting no results to the user.

Step 3 — Retrieve contributions

Call parliament_get_debate_contributions(debate_ext_id=..., member_id=<from Step 1>) for each debate returned in Step 2. This filters contributions to the specified member and returns verbatim text with column_ref, sitting_date, and house.

• If the tool returns empty for a debate the user specifically named, report this honestly: the member may not have spoken in that debate, or the debate may not yet be in the Hansard index.

Step 4 — Multiple debates

If Step 2 returned multiple debates, retrieve contributions from each using the member_id confirmed in Step 1. Collect all non-empty results and present them in chronological sitting_date order.

Step 5 — Surface with provenance tags

Tag every extracted contribution:

• [uk-legal MCP — Hansard] on each contribution block
• Full citation: [Hansard column: HL Deb vol N col M (date)] or [HC Deb vol N col M (date)], using the column_ref and sitting_date fields returned by the tool
• Where multiple contributions appear within the same debate, list them in column_ref order

Source attribution. No contribution may be tagged [uk-legal MCP — Hansard] unless it appears verbatim in a parliament_get_debate_contributions result from this session. A member's name appearing only in a parliament_search_hansard snippet is not a confirmed contribution — do not quote it as one.

Output

Surface to the user:

• Member confirmed: full parliamentary title as returned by parliament_find_member

• Debates searched: list of debate titles, sitting dates, and houses queried

• Contributions found: verbatim text of each contribution, formatted as:

  [verbatim contribution text] [Hansard column: HL/HC Deb vol N col M (date)] [uk-legal MCP — Hansard]

• If no contributions found in a specific debate: "No contribution by [member] recorded in this debate in the Hansard index."

• Suggested next steps (if contributions found): offer to build an OSCOLA Hansard citation via /oscola-build-citation, or trace the full bill journey via /bill-debate-trace

Test prompts:

• "What did Lord Pannick say about the Renters' Rights Bill in the Lords on 14 October 2025?"
• "Find Baroness Hale's contribution to the Online Safety Bill Lords debates."
• "Did Hilary Benn speak on the Northern Ireland Troubles legacy bill?"