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.