parliament-connect-plugin

Parliament Connect

Search UK Parliament video clips by what was actually said, from inside Claude Code, Cowork, or Codex.

Before you install

You need a Parliament Connect account on an active plan or trial. The connector signs in as you and searches only the MPs your plan covers, so without an account there is nothing for it to search and the first query will tell you so. Start at parliamentconnect.com — the trial does not ask for a card.

What it covers

Clips of MPs speaking in the House of Commons chamber, and — from September 2026 — in parliamentary committee sessions: select, Lords and delegated legislation committees, any sitting listed as a committee. All matched against what was actually spoken.

Not covered: the House of Lords chamber, Westminster Hall, and the devolved legislatures. Public bill committees are listed by bill name rather than as committees, so they are not picked up. Committee coverage is forward-only — sittings from before September 2026 are not in the library. A member of the Lords resolves as a member; their chamber is not captured, so any clip of one could only come from a committee session.

Prime Minister's Questions are held as exchanges — each question with the answer to it, both people named — and can be listed by date or by the MP who asked, without a search phrase:

What did the Leader of the Opposition ask at PMQs last Wednesday?

Install

Add the marketplace, then the plugin.

Claude Code

claude plugin marketplace add veedoo-io/parliament-connect-plugin
claude plugin install parliament-connect@veedoo-plugins

Codex

codex plugin marketplace add veedoo-io/parliament-connect-plugin
codex plugin add parliament-connect@veedoo-plugins

Cowork — install from the plugin directory in the Claude app.

Requires Claude Code 2.1.241 or Codex CLI 0.149.0 and above. On older builds the skills may load without the server behind them, which looks like an authentication problem but is a version problem.

Then sign in — it is a separate step

Installing does not sign you in. There is no API key and nothing to paste; the server registers the client itself and opens a browser for you to approve.

• Claude Code — run /mcp, pick Parliament Connect, authenticate. For a headless or SSH session, the server's full name is plugin:parliament-connect:parliament-connect.
• Codex — run codex mcp login parliament-connect. Do not pass a --scopes list; narrowing the request costs you the refresh token. Separately, some clients may currently end up without one regardless, in which case the connection needs re-authorising once the access token expires — re-run the same login.
• Cowork — a Connect prompt appears the first time it is used.

If you already added the server by hand

Anyone following the earlier setup instructions has a parliament-connect server configured manually. Remove it before or after installing, because the two do not merge:

• Claude Code — claude mcp remove parliament-connect. Left in place you get two copies of every tool and two sign-in prompts.
• Codex — delete the [mcp_servers.parliament-connect] block from ~/.codex/config.toml. Left in place it silently overrides the plugin's server, so a future change to the plugin is ignored.

Removing the server is a local change only — the old authorisation is still live on your account. Revoke it in Parliament Connect under Settings → AI tools. Grants are listed by the name the AI tool registered under, so where you have two from the same tool, the stale one is the older grant.

First query

Find clips where MPs criticised water companies over sewage discharges. Give me the three strongest quotes with speaker, party, date and a link.

If that returns clips, everything is working.

Two things worth knowing

• The excerpt attached to each result is usually enough to pick the right clip without opening anything.
• Matching runs on the spoken word, so the half-remembered sentence is the thing to type. A topic label finds less than a phrase someone actually said.

Other places this works

The same account works in Claude.ai, ChatGPT, and Codex without this plugin — setup for each is documented at parliamentconnect.com/blog/search-parliament-clips-from-chatgpt-and-claude.

Support

parliamentconnect.com/contact

Changing this plugin

Run ./scripts/validate.sh before pushing. Use it rather than claude plugin validate . on its own — with a marketplace manifest in the same directory, that command skips the skills entirely and still exits 0.

Licensed MIT — see LICENSE. That covers the packaging in this repo only. It grants no rights in the Parliament Connect name or logo, and no access to the Parliament Connect service, which needs an account on an active plan.