Guide to using Parliamentary Search online
Search Parliamentary Material is available on the Parliament website. It has been developed to help the public find publications related to the whole parliamentary process, including legislation, committees, research and speeches and questions in the Chamber by MPs and Lords.
To help you get the most out of Parliamentary Search, we have created a brief guide to search filters and search results.
Search filters
Filters include:
- 'all of these words', which allows you to search for multiple terms and see results which contains all of these terms (in any order)
- 'this phrase', which searches for the terms entered as a phrase: for example, a search for 'social network' may return 'social networks' or 'social networking'
- sometimes a phrase search can be too specific: for example, searching for 'rural broadband' will not return 'broadband speed in rural areas'
- 'one or more of these words', which shows results containing at least one of your search terms
- 'none of these words', which excludes results containing at least one of your search terms
- 'type', which lets you filter by specific types of business, like petitions or legislation
- use the plus icon to the left of the type to expand options in that area
- select multiple types by ticking all the relevant boxes
- 'Member', which shows a dropdown list of matching names as you start typing
- 'session', which lets you choose the specific session or sessions
- select multiple sessions by holding the Ctrl key and clicking the relevant sessions
A search with 'rural broadband' in the 'all of these words' field, 'Morgan, Helen' in the 'Member' field, 'Parliamentary questions' ticked in 'type' and '23/24' and '22/23' selected in 'session' will display:
- parliamentary questions
- asked by Helen Morgan MP
- during the 2022-23 or 2023-24 sessions
- where both the words 'rural' and 'broadband' appear.
Search results
Once you have added your terms and filters and clicked 'Search', you will be shown a list of results. Results are sorted by relevance.
The title of each result is a link to the relevant full text on parliament.uk or gov.uk. Underneath the title is the item's publication date and category of material.
If your search did not return any results you can use the 'amend your search criteria using the search filters' link. This will display the details of your original search, so that you can add extra options or change your search terms.
The address for your search shown in the address bar in your browser contains all the information for the search. You can bookmark this results page if you want to use it again later.
You can also copy and paste the address into an email if you want to share the results with someone else. Clicking on the link will rerun the search. After a few days this may return more results.
