October 2025 – PSA Parliaments

By Franklin De Vrieze.

When was the last time you had a conversation about power, trust and accountability? For those of us who joined the Global Dialogue on Strengthening Fiscal Ecosystems, it was just a few short weeks ago.

The Global Dialogue was convened by the Trust, Accountability and Inclusion (TAI) Collaborative, with the support of the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), Gates Foundation and Ford Foundation, and joined by the World Bank, IMF, Westminster Foundation for Democracy, Accountability Lab, International Budget Partnership (IBP), INTOSAI, London School of Economics and others.

I joined colleagues from parliaments, governments, oversight bodies, civil society organisations, academia, and donor agencies to reflect on how we can make the systems that govern public money more equitable, accountable, and democratic.

This was not a technical workshop on budget classifications or fiscal rules. It was indeed a conversation about power and trust. It was about the ecosystem that shapes how public money is raised, allocated, and spent, and the role of parliaments in this system.

What is a fiscal ecosystem?

The idea of a fiscal ecosystem has emerged from more than a decade of work by different democracy organisations, responding to a paradox: despite major progress in fiscal transparency worldwide, accountability and equity often lag behind. Put simply, publishing more budget data or introducing new audit tools has not been enough to create sustainable positive change.

A fiscal ecosystem perspective starts with the recognition that no single actor, such as the Ministry of Finance, Parliament, the Auditor General, even civil society, can deliver accountable fiscal governance alone.

Instead, outcomes are shaped by the interplay of multiple actors: core state institutions such as finance ministries, legislatures, audit offices, and treasuries; other state institutions, including independent fiscal councils and constitutional courts; and non-state actors, ranging from civil society and media to investors and academics.

An ecosystems approach is valuable because it illuminates relationships and power, helps identify where reform coalitions can be built and where blockages and resistance are to be found. It shifts our gaze from isolated technical fixes to the deeper political dynamics that shape fiscal outcomes.

One participant summed it up vividly: “We’ve invested so much in auditing, transparency tools, and PFM (public financial management) systems, but none of that matters if we don’t address the political power behind the decisions. It’s not enough to have an open budget portal. We need to change the way decisions are made.”

Why this matters for democracy

Fiscal choices are political choices. They reflect whose voices are heard, whose interests are prioritised, and how trade-offs are managed. In an era of growing inequality and declining trust in democratic institutions, financial governance is at the heart of the democratic bargain.

If citizens see that public money is captured by elites, mismanaged through inefficiency, or siphoned away through corruption, their trust in democracy erodes. Whereas, if fiscal decisions are transparent, inclusive, and oriented toward equity, they can restore confidence in democratic institutions.

The fiscal ecosystem approach is therefore not just about improving budgets. It is about revitalising democracy itself.

Country case studies

We heard about case studies from Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa, which offered both warnings and hope.

Brazil’s fiscal ecosystem feels stuck, with power struggles between executive and legislature paralysing budget governance.
Indonesia demonstrates how impressive legal frameworks can be undermined by clientelism, what one participant called “superficial transparency.”
South Africa shows both fragility and resilience: institutions including Parliament were corroded during “state capture” years, yet independent bodies have forced accountability back onto the agenda.

One of the most striking themes of the Global Dialogue was the oversight of public debt management. Debt sustainability is often framed narrowly as a technocratic issue, managed by finance ministries and assessed by rating agencies. But the Global Dialogue revealed how debt management itself is embedded in the fiscal ecosystem, and the anomalies emerging as a lack of oversight by parliaments, audit institutions and civil society.

In Brazil, congressional amendments and rigid spending rules complicate efforts to manage debt, while courts and media debates shape public perceptions of fiscal credibility.

In Indonesia, debt rules have kept borrowing low, but political capture and inequitable spending reveal that fiscal prudence does not guarantee fairness.

In South Africa, debt is not only a macroeconomic concern but also a political flashpoint: bailouts for SOEs, court challenges over rights-based spending, and parliamentary battles over tax reform all feed into the debt trajectory.

The Global Dialogue highlights how an ecosystems lens can “reveal relationships and power,” showing that debt is not just about numbers but about the balance of competing accountabilities:fiscal (stability), political (patronage), and developmental (equity).

I noticed that parliaments are largely an afterthought in the public financial management (PFM) system. For example, even though the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) framework recognizes parliamentary oversight as the final pillar of performance, parliaments are generally not understood by multilateral and bilateral donors. Also in PFM and public debt management legislation, parliament’s role is largely nominal.

While debt transparency has improved in many places, transparency alone is not enough. Strengthening public accountability is essential. Legislatures, supreme audit institutions, and CSOs need the tools, access, and authority to scrutinize borrowing decisions and ensure they serve the public interest. In the different countries where it has been rolled out, the Public Debt Management Assessment Tool (PDMAT) has proven to generate new insights about the structures, procedures, resources and access to information for parliaments in the debt debate.

What have we learned so far about the role of parliaments in debt oversight? While formal parliamentary oversight functions, such as loan ratification, review of the debt management strategy, or budget approval, are necessary, they are not sufficient. Parliaments must also exercise substantive oversight that scrutinises the policy rationale behind borrowing, the fiscal risks involved, and the developmental returns on debt-financed investments. Parliamentary oversight is integral to preventing unsustainable borrowing and to ensuring debt contributes to equitable development outcomes.

Applying an ecosystems approach to debt could therefore open new strategies: linking debt debates to rights and equity, mobilizing courts and civil society to demand transparent justifications for borrowing, and involving parliaments and media in shaping narratives about debt sustainability. In short, the debt ecosystem may be the next frontier for systemic reform.

Looking forward

Several insights particularly struck me:

Power and trust are central. Lack of trust between governments, parliaments and civil society creates major obstacles.
Reform is political, not just technical. Without shifts in political incentives and substantive involvement of parliaments, technical reforms remain “superficial transparency.”
Local innovation offers hope, with subnational governments and parliaments experimenting with participatory budgeting and litigation strategies.

The fiscal ecosystems approach gives us a lens to see the whole system, identify blockages, and think strategically about coalitions for change. It challenges us to move beyond transparency for its own sake, grapple with the politics of fiscal governance, and build trust across divides.

The Global Dialogue embodied the very ecosystem we were discussing as we were seeing actors who usually work in silos engage as interdependent partners. It reminded me that strengthening fiscal ecosystems is about rebalancing relationships among many institutions, ensuring that budgets serve the many, not the few.

About the author

Franklin De Vrieze is the Head of Practice Accountability at the Westminster Foundation for Democracy

By Charlie Feldman.

“In the circumstances, both sedentary remarks will be removed from the permanent record.” – Mr. Speaker, Commons Chamber, 14 January 2008.

The official record of debates, Hansard, is relied upon as the authoritative record of what was said in Parliament. As Erskine May explains, citing a parliamentary committee’s report, “though not strictly verbatim, [it] is substantially the verbatim report, with repetitions and redundancies omitted and with obvious mistakes corrected, but which on the other hand leaves out nothing that adds to the meaning of the speech or illustrates the argument’.

While research demonstrates that remarks have been expunged from Hansard in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the UK story appears largely unexplored. This matter was recently raised in the Commons when a Member rose on a point of order suggesting she had been censored given a divergence between her remarks as recorded in Hansard and what is heard on the audiovisual recording,

Those who listen closely to a debate and read it later in Hansard will spot modifications, including the removal of words such as deleting ‘Mr. Speaker’ at the beginning of a contribution. There are numerous conventions around what will be included in the Official Record. In the recent case, the rule strictly applied related to omitting remarks continued after the Speaker calls a member’s speech to a close. Pure Hansard expungements at Westminster are few and far between.

The quote that began this post is from an incident in 2008 in which the sedentary interjection “absolute b******s” (without asterisks) was removed by decision of the Speaker after a point of order. The original Hansard attributed it to an MP who was reportedly incensed as it was another MP who made the remark. In the context of the remark being from a sedentary position and with an unclear (and possibly misattributed) interlocutor, the Speaker removed it. Of note, while considered a swear word, “b******s” in full does appear printed in other debates, including as far back as 1986. (In a contrasting incident, one Speaker is suggested to have edited out his own fleeting use of four-letter profanity from Hansard 1989; ITN bleeped the remark in its airing of proceedings).

If one goes far back, much is missing from Hansard. As explained in The History of Hansard, one of the critiques from the period before official Hansard began (prior to 1909) concerned “some parliamentarians’ speeches being shortened or even suppressed”. While those speeches were missing from the record deliberately, some later interventions in the official era are missing unintentionally. Luckily, technological evolution has helped insofar as one no longer sees Hansard stating that a member “made an observation which was not heard in the Reporters’ Gallery.” In one sitting in 1916, for example, inaudible observations are indicated on four occasions – one of which is attributed to the Prime Minister in responding to a question. Chamber acoustics have long been an issue – an 1849 article in The Spectator begins “If there is any one point settled in history, it is that the House of Lords is the worst place for hearing in the known world.”

Focusing on the official reporting era, press reports of removed Hansard content tell us that times of war saw significant expungement. In an article published in the Sunday Dispatch of 25 August 1946, Britain’s Chief Press Censor – George Pirie Thomson – tells of edits from speeches in the House during World War II for various security reasons. MPs, it seems, often crossed the line accidentally, including then PM Winston Churchill. The censorship went further, however, as Thomson revealed censoring a parliamentary question and even working with the Speaker to change the title of a bill!

Security concerns also prompted edits during World War I. Newspaper reports tell us that in a speech given by Sir William Alfred Gelder in August 1916, he accidentally named a town when speaking to what appears now in Hansard as concerns over anti-aircraft guns being “taken away from a certain city on the East Coast”. The debate in the Hansard that follows does not reflect what press reports suggest – that another MP rose on a point of order that the location information potentially helped the enemy. While Gelder wasn’t so sure, the Speaker suggested he speak to the Editor of Hansard. As no location appears in Gelder’s remarks, it may be safe to assume the expungement occurred; the press reports it outright as being removed.

Members have on occasion asked for something to be removed from Hansard. Sir William Darling rose in debate in 1951, recorded as follows: “[T]he right hon. Gentleman, in the debate the night before last, said that I was asleep, and as this statement by him is likely to cause dissatisfaction to my constituents, who probably look upon me as a watchful and wakeful Member, may I ask what steps I can take to have it expunged from the record?” The Speaker said he would consider the matter. It’s unclear if anything actually changed — the relevant debate portion reads “Members opposite are not enthusiastic about remaining throughout the night. Some of them are already going off to sleep—look at the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Sir W. Darling). [Interruption.]”

Controversies have erupted over whether certain changes to the record crossed the line into changing the meaning of a speech or suppressing content. In 1998, for example, the Speaker found that words removed from the Hansard record of a speech from PM Tony Blair did not alter his meaning. No further action was taken. In another case, what was removed from Hansard was reinserted. In 1966, the Speaker reported that the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s edit “was accepted by the reporters, but, after discussion with the Editor of the OFFICIAL REPORT, both he and I are satisfied that it ought not to have been accepted by the reporters; and the passage, in its original purity, will appear in its original form in the Bound Volume.” The Chancellor, who removed words that might be considered a slur upon farmers, later told the Commons: “I deeply regret that I struck those words out of HANSARD”.

Alas, not everything a MP may have wished to remove from Hansard disappears. In 1978, MP Andrew Faulds told the House “Unfortunately, I cannot expunge the offensive words, but I have already written to the right hon. Member for Knutsford apologising to him, and now I wish to extend my apology to you, Sir, and to the House for my regrettable lapse.” To this day his comments remain on the record, wherein he referred to another member as a “fat-arsed twit”.

These examples, while few in number, show that Hansard is not always the immutable record it is sometimes assumed to be. Whether due to acoustics, editorial discretion, wartime censorship, or parliamentary sensitivities, the official transcript has been shaped by forces beyond the spoken word. In exploring these moments of omission and revision, we are reminded that even the most authoritative records are, at times, curated ones.

About the author

Charlie Feldman is the former President of the Canadian Study of Parliament Group. His forthcoming book “Parliamentary” (University of Toronto Press, 2026) chronicles unexpected moments in Canadian parliamentary history.