House of Commons Written Questions – Processed data

Summary

This repo stores the processed data created by lchski/hoc-questions-analysis. It’s currently updated manually. If you want to play with the data quickly, you can browse it in a datasette instance (a straightforward database/SQL interface, in your browser).

The most comprehensive file is questions_and_responses.csv. If you’re doing analysis, you probably want to use it.

Variable details

Every file includes these variables (right hand side of each line is the variable type):

question_uid = col_character(),
parliament = col_double(),
session = col_double(),
question_number = col_double()

question_uid is a concatenation of parliament, session, and question_number, with - in between.

Here are the details about the files, with details of the extra variables:

• questions_by_parliament.csv: High-level information about questions (doesn’t include full question text, see detailed_questions_by_parliament.csv).

  question_sitting_day = col_double(),
  question_date = col_date(format = ""),
  question_title = col_character(),
  asker_name = col_character(),
  asker_riding = col_character(),
  number_of_responses = col_double()
  

• detailed_questions_by_parliament.csv: Much the same as questions_by_parliament.csv, plus full question text.

  question_sitting_day = col_double(),
  question_date = col_date(format = ""),
  asker_name = col_character(),
  asker_riding = col_character(),
  question_content = col_character()
  

• responses_by_parliament.csv: Information about responses, detailing the type of response and where to go to learn more.

  response_date = col_date(format = ""),
  response_sitting_day = col_double(),
  response_type = col_character(),
  response_detail = col_character(),
  response_details_full = col_character()
  

• verbal_responses.csv: Taking just the verbal questions from responses_by_parliament.csv, adds the full response_content from the Debates (Hansard).

  response_sitting_day = col_double(),
  asker_name = col_character(),
  responder_name = col_character(),
  response_content = col_character()
  

• questions_and_responses.csv: The most comprehensive file, combining all the variables listed above. You probably want to use this file for any analysis.

  question_sitting_day = col_double(),
  question_date = col_date(format = ""),
  question_title = col_character(),
  question_content = col_character(),
  asker_name = col_character(),
  asker_riding = col_character(),
  number_of_responses = col_double(),
  response_date = col_date(format = ""),
  response_sitting_day = col_double(),
  response_type = col_character(),
  response_detail = col_character(),
  response_details_full = col_character(),
  responder_name = col_character(),
  response_content = col_character()
  

Learn more

To see how these different files are put together, take a look at the loading code from the main repo (don’t forget the secondary loading scripts). It may not be the most self-explanatory—feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.