find-member-contribution

/find-member-contribution

1. Resolve the member_id first: call parliament_find_member(name=...).
2. Search Hansard by topic or bill name — NOT by member name: parliament_search_hansard(query=...).
3. Retrieve contributions filtered by member: parliament_get_debate_contributions(debate_ext_id=..., member_id=...).
4. If multiple debates returned, retrieve contributions from each and present in date order.
5. Tag every contribution [uk-legal MCP — Hansard] with a full column citation.

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Purpose

Retrieve verbatim Hansard contributions by a named peer or MP for a specific debate, bill, or topic. The principal failure mode for this task is text-searching Hansard directly by member name — that returns debates where the name appears incidentally, not the member's own contributions. This skill addresses it: resolve member_id first, search by topic second, filter by member_id third.

Workflow

Source discipline: If a uk-legal MCP tool returns empty or errored (status: empty / not_found / upstream_validation / etc.), do NOT supplement from training data or web search. Report the empty result to the user with the tool's next_steps / detail field surfaced, and ask for clarifying information (different spelling of a name, a date range, the source URL) rather than fabricating a plausible-looking answer. Empty results are HONEST signal — not a failure mode to paper over.

Step 1 — Resolve the member_id

Call parliament_find_member(name=...) using the name or title the user provided.

• If multiple members match (e.g. "Lord Smith" matches several peers), list all candidates with their full parliamentary titles and ask the user to disambiguate.
• If parliament_find_member returns empty or not_found, the name or title may be incomplete or misspelled — ask the user for the member's full parliamentary title and do not proceed to Step 2 without a confirmed member_id.

Step 2 — Find the debate

Call parliament_search_hansard(query=...) using the BILL NAME or TOPIC the user mentioned — NOT the member's name. The tool returns up to four debates with debate_ext_id, sitting_date, and house.