Background Statutory interpretation is a mechanism for establishing the meaning of the legislation. Courts in the United Kingdom rely on various aids to statutory interpretation, including the Hansard. Hansard is the title that is commonly understood by many in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries to refer to transcripts of the debates of the parliament. The title emanated from Thomas Curson Hansard who was a renowned London printer and publisher before 1833. Ordinarily, the Hansard captures these debates verbatim. For a long time, according to Magyar (2012), Hansard records could not be relied on as aids to statutory interpretation by a court of law. In Davis v Johnson (1978) 2 WLR 21, the House reprimanded Lord Denning for referring to the Hansard when rendering a judgment in the same case earlier in the court of appeal. In 1993, this position was overturned when the same House of Lords decided that the Hansard could serve as an interpretation aid to courts. Lord Brown Wilkinson (in Davis v Johnson (1978) 2 WLR 21 stated that parliamentary material should be authorized for use as an aid to the construction of the legislation in question is ambiguous or obscure. According to Jha (2012), the purposive approach to statutory interpretation is relied on by courts when they wish to understand the rationale as to why a law was passed. The common understanding is that every law is passed to address particular mischief in society. As Lord Griffiths stated, courts of law are barred by time from relying on the literal interpretation of legislation. In pursuit of the purposive approach thus, Seidenfeld (2013) asserts that courts have found themselves seeking the guidance of extraneous materials, among them, the Hansard. The Use of the Hansard (in the UK) as an Aid to Statutory Interpretation Ordinarily, parliamentarians put the minister (at the time of tabling a bill to the parliament) to the task to explain the rationale behind the bill. According to Bell (2013), this explanation effectively becomes the rationale behind the piece of legislation. Many courts believe that the use of the Hansard aids the legal process, hence facilitating in rendering justice. As Lord Denning argued, courts’ move to avoid consulting the Hansard was tantamount to “groping in the dark” attempting to comprehend the rationale of an Act. Today, as Goldswain (2012) reveals, it is a commonly accepted practice that the Hansard can be considered by courts, particularly where the wordings of the legislation in question are either ambiguous or obscure. Moreover, where the wordings of an Act may occasion an absurdity, recourse is made to the Hansard. On the other hand, some scholars such as Costelloe (2015) feel that resorting to the Hansard brings with itself various difficulties. It is the feeling of various commentators that parliamentary material is unreliable for use in a court because intentions regarding why a law is being passed may not be constant but subject to change throughout the enactment process. Therefore, according to Costelloe (2015), a court that dwells on the intentionalist approach will incur challenges discerning the intent that carries more relevance relative to the other. Further, relying on parliamentary records limits the court’s ability to think independently, hence diminishing its role as the interpreter of legislation. A