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 1734 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 25 October 2022
Michelle Thomson
I have a quick supplementary on the pension schemes. Perhaps I do not understand the situation correctly, but I think that the existing schemes are defined benefit schemes rather than defined contribution schemes. Is that right?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 25 October 2022
Michelle Thomson
I fully accept that.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 25 October 2022
Michelle Thomson
Correct. I absolutely agree with you. My point is that, in getting to the detail around the financial memorandum, given that we are talking about defined benefit pensions, the liability for which will lie with whoever takes them on, getting those costed up would be a pretty big consideration. That liability consideration is a worry for every defined benefit pension scheme, so the transfer of that liability might be quite beneficial, but that is a minor point.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Michelle Thomson
I suspect that this has already been covered, but is part of your concern about getting this on the record now that, even if the power were to be subsequently changed a year down the road, it establishes a precedent that could be used for other potential disbenefits in similar trade deals, given the GDP figures that you outlined at the start of your statement?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Procurement Bill
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Michelle Thomson
I appreciate what you have outlined about engagement behind the scenes and at official level. Have any discussions taken place in either of those ways about the breadth of powers and about specific examples? Can you give any more colour to that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
UK Infrastructure Bank Bill
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Michelle Thomson
It may be that this question should live with the Public Audit Committee, but have there been any discussions about how moneys that are spent by the UK Infrastructure Bank will be actively scrutinised, audited and aligned with the national performance framework, given that the Scottish Government is responsible for outcomes?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
UK Infrastructure Bank Bill
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Michelle Thomson
I highlight the issue because of the suggestions of an MOU and a representative who will consider the proactive, up-front aspirations in various areas. However, I am also thinking about the reactive scrutiny element in relation to value for public money. Those are the two sides to the coin. However, you can come back to us on that.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Procurement Bill
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Michelle Thomson
I have the same general observation that I relayed in the earlier session about how scrutiny will be undertaken and how there will be alignment with our priorities—in terms of fair work, conditionality or gender fairness—both proactively and up front and reactively in terms of value for spend and alignment to the national performance framework. That is my first question.
My second question is that it would be helpful for me—and would make your concern live—if you could outline some practical examples of where the fact that the powers are too broad would be a concern in procurement processes.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Procurement Bill
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Michelle Thomson
To go back to my first point, we covered this in an earlier session, but what was said then will belong in a different record. Will the discussions include any consideration of how procurement and the enactment of this bill will align directly with the national performance framework? I call your attention to the fact that the Finance and Public Administration Committee has asked that the UK Government has cognisance of this, because there are specific measurable outcomes that the Scottish Government will be measured against, even if it is not directly linear—we appreciate the complexity of the budget. Has any consideration been given to that or is that an additional area of concern for you?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Michelle Thomson
You have talked eloquently about last week’s pretty disastrous fiscal event. Arguably, too many people in politics and perhaps even the media were too hasty to view the wider economic landscape through the prism of London. That often happens. However, that budget and fiscal event talks to a culture, perhaps, of risk taking. We saw that with defined benefit pensions, where liability lies with the providers. Today’s Financial Times reports some statistics on the dwindling investment of UK pensions in the domestic stock market. The article says:
“as recently as the mid-1990s, pension funds allocated just under half their assets to UK equities, a figure that has fallen to under 15 per cent.”
It goes on to say that the type of pension schemes that, last week, were
“caught up in the liquidity squeeze ... allocate just 3 per cent of assets to UK equities.”
Frankly, it is not a good sign that long-term patient capital vehicles are reluctant to invest in their home turf and the alignment of that. That strikes me as a business opportunity for Scotland whereby you signal a prudent approach, aligned with the Scottish National Investment Bank with long-term patient capital. Are you able to commit that, with regard to all funding towards the Scottish National Investment Bank, and, indeed, in relation to long-term patient investment capital, you will do all that you can to protect that and perhaps even increase it? It would be good if Scotland were seen as a place for some of these defined benefit schemes to invest, where they are not going to invest elsewhere.
