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 2496 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Michelle Thomson
That is an option.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Michelle Thomson
Do you have a final comment, Jim?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Michelle Thomson
Charlie and Jim, what numbers would you give?
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 5 October 2023
Michelle Thomson
To ask the First Minister what support the Scottish Government is providing to Creative Scotland. (S6F-02433)
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 5 October 2023
Michelle Thomson
There are considerable challenges in the arts and culture sector. The sector and the Scottish Government are struggling to operate in a post-pandemic, post-Brexit, high-inflation and constrained-budget environment that is not of Scotland’s making. Nevertheless, the scale of funding for the arts and culture sector is comparatively low at around 0.1 per cent of our overall budget.
The Scottish Government has set out its stall in creating a wellbeing economy, and the arts and culture sector is one of the primary contributors to that ambition. Will the First Minister and his cabinet secretary redouble their efforts to make sure that the sector is supported by whatever means possible during what will undoubtedly be further challenges in the years ahead?
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 5 October 2023
Michelle Thomson
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the social justice secretary has had with ministerial colleagues regarding the support available to families experiencing poverty, including as a result of high energy costs. (S6O-02604)
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 5 October 2023
Michelle Thomson
I welcome—especially during challenge poverty week—the significant interventions of the Scottish Government using the limited devolved powers that are at its disposal. Does the cabinet secretary agree that poverty reduction in Scotland is undermined by the, frankly, illogical approach to social security in Westminster and that an essentials guarantee from the United Kingdom Government would go a long way to alleviating the disproportionate pressure that is being placed on devolved budgets?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Sustainability of Scotland’s Finances
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Michelle Thomson
Yes, I can understand that. The Fraser of Allander Institute’s paper sets out anticipated effects. As you said, the methodology that it is using will be the same as that of the Scottish Fiscal Commission. My wider concern is around perception. It is extraordinarily difficult—probably impossible—to work out some scenarios properly, but there will be a perception linked to what, in my view, is a relatively low committed spend to entrepreneurs, for example, of only £15 million, although, of course, we have not seen the budget. It is about the wider picture.
Again, it is this same question: what reflections have you made on the perception of people, businesses and investors? I accept that the foreign direct investment stats are very strong—we agree on that—but we are trying to predict how behaviours might change as a result of policy decisions. We have to compare apples with apples, as the convener said. Do you think that the perception, rightly or wrongly, that Scotland is a higher tax environment will play into investment decisions? How are you reflecting on that perception in your decisions on tax rises?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Sustainability of Scotland’s Finances
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Michelle Thomson
Sorry to interrupt, Deputy First Minister. I suspect that I will strongly agree with what you are going to say. My question, if I have not been clear, was, given the scale of the estate that you have outlined, do you have a worked-up programme in the Government to address that issue? I think that we are all agreed on the scale of the challenge and on the benefits therein. I fully understand your position, but there is a need to move to having something substantive—to have at least a framework—to operate to.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Sustainability of Scotland’s Finances
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Michelle Thomson
I am sure that you, like me, will welcome any costed proposals and alternatives, because we all need to own the issues that relate to the constraints on a fixed budget.
One of the things that is being discussed this week, with a helpful intervention from the Fraser of Allander Institute, is the suggested income tax rises and the effect of behavioural changes. The Fraser of Allander Institute modelling showed the different percentages and numbers that that would wipe off any tax raised, varying from £56 million to £161 million, or 30 per cent to 36 per cent, based on the proposals from the Scottish Trade Unions Congress and the Institute for Public Policy Research Scotland. I appreciate that that cannot be exact. The only time that the numbers can ever be exact is after the event; we all understand that. To what extent are you considering behavioural changes? What would mark the tipping point in a go/no-go decision for you?
