Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
Search by MSP
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Displaying 1667 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
National Health Service (Winter Pressures)
Meeting date: 10 January 2023
Jackie Dunbar
What actions are being taken to ensure that health boards retain the ability to respond to local circumstances to alleviate some of the unique pressures that they currently face?
Meeting of the Parliament
Independence Referendum
Meeting date: 10 January 2023
Jackie Dunbar
Would Ross Greer agree that it is totally undemocratic and, quite frankly, a disgrace that, in 2023, we have folk 25 years old and under who have never been able to have a say on whether their country should be independent, and that they are their own generation?
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 22 December 2022
Jackie Dunbar
It was recently announced that the Scottish Government intends to invest approximately £5 million in additional road safety measures for the A9 between now and 2025. What does the Government anticipate that it will achieve through that welcome investment?
Meeting of the Parliament
Climate Change Committee Reports
Meeting date: 22 December 2022
Jackie Dunbar
At this week’s NZET Committee, Emily Nurse of the UK Climate Change Committee highlighted that the UK Government’s decision to put the Scottish Cluster on the reserve list has had a knock-on effect on hitting net zero targets in Scotland. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the Scottish Cluster, the Acorn carbon capture and storage project and the hydrogen project are important not only for the north-east but for the whole of Scotland and our ambitious net zero energy strategy? What on-going discussions is the Scottish Government having with the UK Government about supporting those critical projects?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change Committee’s Review of Scottish Emissions Targets and Progress Report 2022
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Jackie Dunbar
Good morning to our panel and thank you for coming.
Scotland needs to move to achieve our ambitious targets, but that could present a potential conflict with our commitment to a just transition. How do we ensure that the “just” aspect of the transition remains our top priority? I leave it up to you as to who is best to answer.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change Committee’s Review of Scottish Emissions Targets and Progress Report 2022
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Jackie Dunbar
What aspects of building decarbonisation can the Scottish Government deliver on its own, and which ones would be more effectively delivered by jointly working with the rest of UK?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change Committee’s Review of Scottish Emissions Targets and Progress Report 2022
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Jackie Dunbar
I have just the one, convener. It is about low-emission vehicles rather than public transport. What can the Scottish Government do within the powers that it has to increase the market share of low-emission vehicles in Scotland, be they electric vehicles or hydrogen vehicles?
Meeting of the Parliament
Transforming Scotland’s Vacant and Derelict Sites
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Jackie Dunbar
Yes, of course. Can I get my time back, Presiding Officer?
Meeting of the Parliament
Transforming Scotland’s Vacant and Derelict Sites
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Jackie Dunbar
I have not been here for 15 years. I am a former councillor and have been trying to get derelict sites sorted. I am sure that the minister will be able to speak about the time that he has spent here in Parliament.
When we pause to think about it, we know that many of Scotland’s derelict sites are part of our industrial past.
Meeting of the Parliament
Transforming Scotland’s Vacant and Derelict Sites
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Jackie Dunbar
I congratulate my colleague and friend Emma Harper on securing this vital debate on a subject to which, I am sure, every member in the chamber, and indeed everyone across the country, can relate. Derelict sites blight our communities and have an impact on public health, and they are not representative of the modern, post-industrial Scotland that we are aa bidin in today.
The potential for reusing vacant and derelict sites, known to some as empty brownfield sites, is huge. It is difficult to think of a single major area of Scottish public policy that would not benefit from a concerted national effort to bring those sites back into use. Focusing on those sites as a vehicle for delivery could help to enhance policy co-ordination across civic Scotland by concentrating effort and resources where they are most needed, as a tangible example of the place principle in action.
Transforming Scotland’s legacy sites requires innovation and technical skills across a variety of professional disciplines, from ecologists, demolition teams and architects through to space planners, construction experts and renewable heat engineers. With the right strategic leadership, we could use this opportunity to develop the skills and commercial expertise that Scotland needs in order to shift to a sustainable growth path and deliver a green recovery. By focusing on vacant and derelict land, we can do that in a way that will help direct resources and support to the parts of the country that need it most, thereby ensuring that those who were left behind by the last chapter in Scotland’s economic history are at the forefront of the next.
As a member of the Parliament’s Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, I am, of course, interested in climate action. As we know, climate action needs to be a collective endeavour, but barely half of those who are living in our most deprived communities—which are the communities with the highest concentrations of vacant and derelict land—see it as an urgent priority. If we really want to make climate action a collective priority, tackling our legacy of vacant and derelict sites is key in getting the climate message through to everyone.
