UK Parliament MCP server for AI agents

Parliament MCP Server provides access to UK parliamentary data through an MCP server interface. It offers tools to search constituencies, members, debates, and parliamentary questions, along with semantic search capabilities powered by Qdrant vector database.

Quick Start

Prerequisites

You'll need:

Docker and Docker Compose
Node.js (for mcp-remote)
Claude Desktop (or another MCP client)
Azure OpenAI account with API access

One-Step Setup

Create a .env file by copying the .env.example file and fill in the required variables, including your Azure OpenAI credentials.
Run the automated setup:

make dev_setup_from_scratch

Configure Claude Desktop by adding this to your configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "parliament-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["mcp-remote", "http://localhost:8080/mcp/", "--allow-http", "--debug"]
    }
  }
}

Manual Setup

1. Clone and Configure

# Clone the repo
git clone [email protected]:i-dot-ai/parliament-mcp.git
cd parliament-mcp

# Set up environment file
cp .env.example .env
nano .env  # Edit to add your configuration

2. Start Services

# Start Qdrant and MCP server
docker-compose up --build

The services will be available at:

MCP Server: http://localhost:8080/mcp/
Qdrant: http://localhost:6333

3. Initialize and Load Data

# Initialize Qdrant
docker compose exec mcp-server uv run parliament-mcp --log-level INFO init-qdrant

# Load Hansard data
docker compose exec mcp-server uv run parliament-mcp load-data hansard --from-date 2025-06-23 --to-date 2025-06-27

# Load Parliamentary Questions
docker compose exec mcp-server uv run parliament-mcp --log-level WARNING load-data parliamentary-questions --from-date 2025-06-23 --to-date 2025-06-27

4. Install mcp-remote

npm install -g mcp-remote

5. Configure Claude Desktop

Add the server configuration to your Claude Desktop config file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "parliament-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-remote",
        "http://localhost:8080/mcp/",
        "--allow-http",
        "--debug"
      ]
    }
  }
}

You can also generate this configuration automatically:

make mcp_claude_config

6. Restart Claude Desktop

Claude should now have access to the Parliament MCP tools.

Available MCP Tools

The MCP Server provides 11 tools for parliamentary research:

search_constituency - Search constituencies by name or get details by ID
get_election_results - Get election results for constituencies or specific members
search_members - Search Commons or Lords members by various criteria
get_detailed_member_information - Get comprehensive member information
get_state_of_the_parties - Get party makeup for a house on a specific date
get_government_posts - Get all government posts and current holders
get_opposition_posts - Get all opposition posts and current holders
get_departments - Get reference data for government departments
search_parliamentary_questions - Search Parliamentary Written Questions
search_debates - Search debate titles for relevant discussions
search_contributions - Search Hansard for actual spoken contributions

Usage Examples

You can use natural language queries with Claude, such as:

Parliamentary Questions

"Search for parliamentary questions about climate change policy"
"Find questions asked by Conservative MPs about healthcare funding"

Hansard Contributions

"Search for contributions about the budget debate"
"Find speeches by Keir Starmer about economic policy"

Member Information

"Get detailed information about the MP for Birmingham Edgbaston"
"Search for Labour MPs elected in 2024"

Parliamentary Structure

"Show me the current government ministers"
"Get the state of the parties in the House of Commons"

Troubleshooting

Common Issues

MCP Connection Issues

Ensure MCP server is running on port 8080
Verify Claude Desktop configuration is correct

Data Loading Failures

Check Azure OpenAI credentials in .env file
Ensure Qdrant is running and accessible
Use --ll DEBUG flag for detailed logging

Qdrant Issues

Verify collections are created with parliament-mcp init-qdrant
Use the Qdrant Web UI at http://localhost:6333/dashboard to inspect collections

Logs and Debugging

View server logs:

docker-compose logs mcp-server

Check Qdrant status:

curl http://localhost:6333/healthz
# Or use the make command:
make qdrant_health

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "parliament-mcp" '{"command":"npx","args":["mcp-remote","http://localhost:8080/mcp/","--allow-http","--debug"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "parliament-mcp": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "http://localhost:8080/mcp/",
                "--allow-http",
                "--debug"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "parliament-mcp": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "http://localhost:8080/mcp/",
                "--allow-http",
                "--debug"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect