Hansard online quicker

Parliament has announced:

• A draft version of speeches made by members of Parliament, called the Draft Transcript, is now published to the Parliament website within 2½ hours of members’ speeches being delivered in the House.
• The final version (subject to minor correction), called the Daily Debates, is now published to the Parliament website debate by debate—you no longer have to wait for the whole of the day’s proceedings to be ready for publishing. When the Daily Debate is published, the Draft Transcript is removed.

This is a great step forward. To be able to see a transcript of speeches within 150 minutes will be very helpful for scrutinizing what MPs say. Combined with the In The House service which gets videos onto You Tube within an hour or so, and we have excellent transparency.

The next step is select committees – eventually I’d like them to be reported to the same detail as the House is. But a first step would be to broadcast the public sessions of select committees and make them available by webcast and on digital TV.