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 2074 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had with the United Kingdom Government regarding the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. (S6O-00217)
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Brexit Impact on Supply Chain and Labour Market
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
In the world of Brexiteers, the Tory and Labour parties and even some reporting outlets, it has become common to lay the blame for trade and supply chain problems on the pandemic rather than on Brexit. Problems are presented as a short-term shock instead of there being an acknowledgement of real long-term supply chain issues, despite evidence to the contrary.
Earlier this year, the Office for National Statistics published compelling analysis in which it compared the first quarter of 2021 with the first quarter of 2018. It used quarter 1 of 2018 as the most recent stable period, as it was pre-Brexit and pre-pandemic. Brexit uniquely affects UK relationships with the EU, whereas we acknowledge that the pandemic is global in its impact. Therefore, if the Tory and Labour Brexiteers were right, we would expect UK trade with non-EU and EU countries to have been similarly disrupted, but what has the ONS found? It states:
“Total trade in goods with EU countries decreased by 23.1% and with non-EU countries decreased by 0.8%”.
To put it more simply, trade with EU countries has been negatively impacted 29 times more than trade with non-EU countries. That is the Brexit effect. As James Withers of Scotland Food & Drink has noted,
“‘Project Fear’ is ‘Project Here’”.
Softer data confirms that. The most recent business insights and conditions survey revealed that 39,000 businesses across the UK believe that Brexit has been by far the most significant factor in the disruption of importing and exporting.
As trading patterns change, the elephant in the room is China. Since the second quarter of 2020, the UK has imported more goods from China than from any other country, and China is now one of the UK’s top five import partners. In fact, imports from China grew in the comparative period that I outlined earlier, from quarter 1 in 2018 to quarter 1 in 2021. That presents structural, strategic and environmental challenges, as it greatly extends supply chains and makes for huge logistical challenges.
In other words, the UK Government has swapped our export trading with our nearest friends and neighbours, despite their proximity, for a flood of imports from China. Frankly, that is based on ideological decisions that Scotland opposed and that the Opposition was well warned about but ignored.
Like all constituencies, Falkirk East has significant issues across a variety of sectors, with the food and drink, retail, engineering and manufacturing sectors all under additional pressure. Staffing concerns are uniformly highlighted. The Economy and Fair Work Committee, of which I am a member, has already identified a lack of access to labour in supply chains as a huge issue. We have heard evidence on that from Martin Reid of the Road Haulage Association and Ewan MacDonald-Russell of the Scottish Retail Consortium. [Interruption.] I will not give way—I am just finishing.
Scotland is just starting to experience the impact of Brexit. However, in my time at Westminster, I spoke to many major businesses and they were clear that, when Scotland becomes independent, as she surely will, they will be looking to move major operations to Scotland so that they can access the valuable EU market. We should not forget that.
16:29Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Decision Time
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My application failed as well. I would have voted yes.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Economic Recovery
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
Given the focus that there has been on supporting capital investment in early-stage businesses, what progress has there been in managing that with Scottish Enterprise, the SNIB and so on? Where is that at the moment? Can you give some insights?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Professional Qualifications Bill
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
Following on from that point, have you had any indications of any possible or reasonable rationale as to why the UK Government would not accept the amendment, given your stated concerns about standards? Is there anything that you can share in that regard? If the UK Government is saying that there is no intention of lowering standards, why not simply accept the amendment? Can you clarify the situation?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Economic Recovery
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
The situation around FTs has been mentioned, and clear concern has been expressed about the changes in funding. I want to allow you to put on the record any mitigations and your planned approach, given the Scottish Government’s undoubted focus on supporting business and growing the economy. Can you give any further insights on how you will mitigate the loss of FTs going forward?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Covid-19 Vaccination Certification Scheme
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
The first relates to the tension between our personal privacy and our civic duty, combined with general concerns about use of data, which the pandemic will accentuate. Perceptions of how data will be managed are based on the level of trust between citizens and Government. The level of trust in the Scottish Government and the First Minister is extremely high, whereas trust in the UK Prime Minister is extremely low.
15:25Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Decision Time
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I lost connection to my mobile application. I would have voted yes.
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Covid-19 Vaccination Certification Scheme
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
I will happily give way. Will Douglas Ross vote against any such scheme when his Tory masters bring it forward in Westminster?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Covid-19 Vaccination Certification Scheme
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
We are all clear that any Government has a duty to act in the general public health interest. That invariably means balancing seemingly conflicting interests for the greater good. The entire pandemic has been characterised by that challenge, and we have all accepted, in recognition of our obligations, temporary abeyance of some of our rights. It appears that there is, after all, such a thing as society.
The wonder that is vaccination has been a success that has led to fewer deaths and limited poor health outcomes. Its efficacy is better than it was originally thought it would be, and the booster programme is now being rolled out. Take-up is high; I am pleased to say that the level of take-up among younger people is encouraging. It is true that vaccination certificates might affect younger people more, but the vaccination certification approach might encourage take-up among them, as they realise that their desire to go clubbing outweighs their hesitancy.
