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
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Michelle Thomson
One of the other areas of interest, which might already have been brought to your attention, is the use of the ScotWind money to fund day-to-day revenue expenditure. Professor Bell said:
“The ScotWind money can be thought of as equivalent to a sovereign wealth fund, and a sovereign wealth fund should be used to support future generations, because it is a sort of one-off payment.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 9 January 2024; c 14.]
What thinking did the Scottish Government give to that use of that money and the breaching, if you like, of the sovereign wealth fund principle? I know that we have often commented on what appears to be the UK Government’s arbitrary waste of money gained from oil that could have been used to the benefit of future generations. I would appreciate hearing more about the thinking that led you to consider, despite that, still spending it on day-to-day revenue.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Michelle Thomson
Just to put something on the record, at last week’s Education, Children and Young People Committee, Minister Graeme Dey pointed out that
“The starting point for colleges next year will be slightly better—only slightly better, I stress—than the finishing point for this year.”—[Official Report, Education, Children and Young People Committee, 10 January 2024; c 30.]
My first question, which is a kind of rapid-fire one, picks up on a point that you have just made, cabinet secretary. Have the Opposition parties put forward budget proposals this year for what they would like to be cut in what is a very difficult budget, as you have set out?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Michelle Thomson
I will move on to public sector reform. I have seen the phases that have been set out, but I am aware that the committee did not receive an accompanying financial strategy, which the former Deputy First Minister committed to in March 2023. Is the intention to provide an updated financial strategy at an appropriate point, once the early scoping phases are out of the way? If so, what timescales are you working to?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Post-school Education and Skills Reform
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Michelle Thomson
That was a very helpful response. In your opening remarks, you alluded to who might have the best oversight of future requirements. One challenge is how we can correctly map today’s gaps against future needs. Can I make the assumption that, in reflecting on who has the best oversight of that, the focus will be on the future? That is where we need to get ahead of the pack as we go through the exercise.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Post-school Education and Skills Reform
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Michelle Thomson
That is very helpful. You have illustrated the complexity of the matter.
The independent review of the skills delivery landscape highlights
“the importance of getting the structures and balance of responsibilities within the system right, alongside an agreed vision for success and a shared language.”
Although the report may say that, the mix of stakeholder groupings needs to be able to buy into it.
There are big key terms in that excerpt: “agreed vision for success”, “shared language”—presumably, there will need to be shared outcomes as well—and
“the structures and balance of responsibilities”.
I would appreciate hearing your thoughts about the approach that you are taking to pull that multiplicity of stakeholders together to achieve that.
09:45Education, Children and Young People Committee
Post-school Education and Skills Reform
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Michelle Thomson
I thank the minister for joining us. I fully appreciate the scale of the challenge that is in front of you. I appreciate that there are multiple stakeholders, but I first want to ask about how the enterprise agencies’ role in post-school education reform will work. What will their role be in relation to the interface with workforce planning, to ensure that we get the skills that we need for the future? What are your thoughts on that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Post-school Education and Skills Reform
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Michelle Thomson
Is it fair to characterise that approach as creating a new culture of engagement? You are describing a considerable amount of engagement, which is time consuming. I appreciate that. Are you consciously undertaking changing culture in your engagement?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 9 January 2024
Michelle Thomson
Thank you. I suspect that my colleague Liz Smith will want to come in on that, as I know that education is an area of interest to her.
Chris Birt, a so-called just transition and the challenges of getting to net zero affect socioeconomic groupings differently. Are you concerned that the cuts to some of the spending on the ambition to get to net zero and enabling a just transition will affect people who are most in poverty or might help to push people into poverty over the longer term? If so, what are those concerns?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 9 January 2024
Michelle Thomson
Would you have expected fiscal rules to be applied to that, in effect?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 9 January 2024
Michelle Thomson
Good morning, panel. I have a couple of areas that I want to explore, but I will start with one of the principles that the convener outlined, which is the focus on a greener and growing economy. We have thus far asked quite a lot of questions about the growing element, but I want to get some views on the greener element of it, perhaps in particular the low focus on capex and what impact that will have on net zero goals and just transition. In other words, to what extent will this budget enable the greener element as well as the growing element—because obviously we have supply chain considerations—and to what extent will it not?
