Methodology

How Where They Stand answers a question, where its information comes from, how it checks itself, and how it stays neutral.

What it does, and what it does not

Hansard is the official, word-for-word record of Parliament. Parliament's own Hansard search is the right tool for finding something you know is there: a phrase, a debate, or everything one member said on a day. It is fast, complete and authoritative, and every source shown here links back to the official record.

Where They Stand answers questions instead. Ask, in plain English, what has been said on a subject and by whom, and it writes a short briefing on the positions taken, grouped by who holds them, with every point linked to the speech it came from.

What is covered

• House of Commons and House of Lords debates, and Westminster Hall debates.
• Written questions and answers, and written ministerial statements, from both Houses.
• Public Bill Committee debates.
• Every division (vote) in both Houses, with how each member voted.

The record runs from the general election of 6 May 2010 to the present, and is updated twice a day. The status page shows the most recent record and the last update.

How a question is answered

1. The question becomes filters you can see and change. A language model turns the question into search terms and filters: dates, House, regions, parties, named members, roles (such as government ministers) and the policy areas involved. "Northern MPs" means MPs for seats in the North East, North West, and Yorkshire and the Humber. The filters are shown with every briefing and can be edited and re-run.
2. The record is searched by words and by meaning. Keyword search finds the exact terms; meaning-based search finds speeches that make the same point in different words. Results are ranked by relevance, by how recent they are, and by whether the speaker held a relevant office at the time, such as the minister for the department concerned. The weight given to recency and to office can be changed in Settings. The same filters and settings always return the same sources.
3. Evidence is chosen for balance, not just for matches. The sources passed on are spread across speaker groups, such as government, opposition and backbenches, with no more than two contributions from any one speaker. A summary computed from the data, not written by the model, shows how many contributions came from which groups, parties and kinds of seat.
4. The briefing is written only from those sources. The briefing is written by an AI model (Claude, made by Anthropic). It receives only the sources found, is instructed to use no other knowledge, and must attach a citation to every statement about what anyone said.
5. The briefing is then checked automatically. Every quotation behind a citation is checked against the original text, and any citation that does not match is removed. Statements without a source are highlighted. Judgemental words used in the briefing's own voice are underlined. Spelling is set to British English, never inside quotations.
6. When the record has nothing, it says so. If no sufficiently relevant records are found, the answer is "No records found", and no briefing is written.

Who said it, as they were at the time

Every contribution is matched to a person by a unique identifier, never by name, so a member is recognised across changes of name and title (for example, an MP who later sits in the Lords). Each speaker is described as they were on the day they spoke: their party, their constituency and its region or nation, and any government, opposition or select committee chair role they held on that date. A minister is labelled a minister only for what they said while in office.

City, town and rural seats

Seat types are defined by the size of the built-up area that people live in, not by whether a place has official city status. Some small places are cities, and some large ones are towns, so official status says little about what a constituency is like.

• City seat: most of the constituency's residents live in one urban area of about 200,000 people or more. Reading and Bolton can count; small cathedral cities do not.
• Rural seat: fewer than half of its residents live in urban areas of 10,000 or more.
• Town seat: everything in between.

The calculation uses official data from each nation: the Office for National Statistics' built-up areas and Census 2011 populations for England and Wales, National Records of Scotland settlements and Census 2022 for Scotland, and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency's settlement classification and Census 2021 for Northern Ireland. A large conurbation is not allowed to swallow neighbouring counties, so commuter towns around London, such as Watford and St Albans, count as towns.

Age and gender

A question can ask how women and men, or older and younger members, have differed on an issue, or can be limited to one group ("what have female MPs said about childcare?"). Briefings mention gender or age only when the question asks about them, and never generalise beyond the speeches cited.

• Age is the member's age on the day they spoke, not their age today. Age groups are under 40, 40 to 54, 55 to 69, and 70 and over.
• Dates of birth come from Wikidata, matched to each member by their UK Parliament identifier. Where only the year of birth is recorded, the age is shown as approximate ("about 54").
• Gender is as recorded by Parliament's own Members data, which records it as female or male. It is shown in the details of each source and is never inferred from a name.
• When a date of birth or gender is not recorded, the source says "not known" and the member is left out of any age or gender filter. The evidence summary shows how many contributions fall into each group.

Neutrality

Where They Stand takes no position on any issue, party or person. Briefings report what was said and by whom; they do not judge whether it was right.

• Briefings use plain reporting words, such as said, argued, criticised, supported and opposed. Loaded words such as "lied", "misled" or "U-turn" may appear only inside a quotation from the member who used them, and the briefing never says that an individual contradicted themselves: it gives what they said on each date.
• Evidence is chosen to cover the different groups of speakers, and the balance is shown with each briefing.
• The filters and ranking are visible and editable, and the same question with the same settings always draws on the same sources.
• The example questions on the home page rotate across parties, both Houses and all four nations.
• The site is independent. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the UK Parliament, any party or any campaign.

What the warnings mean

Highlighted text

A statement in the briefing that no cited source directly supports. Treat it with caution.

Underlined word

A judgemental word in the briefing's own voice rather than in a quotation. Check the sources.

"No records found"

The record, with the filters shown, contains nothing sufficiently relevant. No briefing was written.

Saved and shared briefings

Every briefing is saved at its own address, such as wheretheystand.uk/b/k3m7q2xwpa, so it can be shared and cited. A saved briefing shows exactly what was shown when it was written, with its sources and checks, the date it was prepared and the most recent record it could draw on. Saved briefings are not listed anywhere on the site, and search engines are asked not to index them.

The record keeps changing, so a saved briefing can fall out of date; "Ask again" writes a new one from the current record. A briefing that is found to be wrong or unfair can be withdrawn; its address then says so. Questions are saved with their briefings, so please do not include personal details in a question.

Limitations

• Briefings are written by AI. The checks catch many errors but not all: always check the sources.
• The official record's data does not include a link to each individual speech in debates. The official link opens the day's record, and the column number and the TheyWorkForYou link pinpoint the speech. Written questions and statements link to the exact record.
• Region filters apply to MPs only, because members of the House of Lords do not have constituencies.
• Party, role and constituency details come from public member data maintained by mySociety; any gaps there are reflected here.
• The record begins in May 2010.
• Meaning-based search is built gradually, newest records first. Until it is complete, older records are found by keyword search; the status page shows its coverage.

Data sources and licences

• Hansard, from the UK Parliament, via TheyWorkForYou and ParlParse, run by the mySociety charity. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.
• Member, party, constituency and office-holder data from mySociety's ParlParse.
• Members' gender from the UK Parliament Members data, under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0. Dates of birth from Wikidata, available under CC0 (public domain).
• Boundaries, urban areas and census populations from the Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• Briefings are written by Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic.