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 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 12 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
My last question concerns Brexit, which I know you have baked into numbers generally. For a period of time, it was difficult to disaggregate the data, given what was happening with wider geopolitical issues such as the energy crisis. My guess is that it is only the longer-run forecasts and the evidence therein that will start to show, or at least allow us to apportion some data to, the impact of Brexit. Am I right or wrong in that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 12 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
Thank you.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 12 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
Good morning. I have just one question, which is related to inflation and, therefore, debt payments on PPI-type models. I have not heard a lot of talk about that. Obviously, various public sector bodies have seen massive increases in their repayments. Although we can take a view on what the OBR predicts about future inflation, I imagine that it will need to be considerably more cautious, in that when inflation goes down, it goes down. There is a clear link. Can you give me some more guidance on that? Also, what behavioural impacts—if any—will there be for finance executives in public sector organisations who are managing those greatly increased PPI payments?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 12 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
It sounds as though, collectively, we do not know a great deal about the data and the impact of it. It strikes me as quite interesting that, if we are looking at the longer-term trajectory, even though we all assume that inflation will come down—which I think is correct—we also agree that it will not come down to the historically low levels that we previously had. It strikes me that it would be interesting to work through the impact of that on a variety of public sector organisations. I realise that I do not know about the issue, so perhaps it is heartening that you do not, either—I do not know. Anyway, thank you.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 12 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
In fairness, it might be; the issue might be my ignorance. If we have the data, we can start to interrogate what the impact could be, and how that plays into the real economy, which is why I am asking.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 12 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
That long-range looking back and the figures that you have set out are very helpful. I was not entirely clear from the autumn statement what the significant trigger factors would be that would make the change from what you have set out as the position over the past 15 years. In fairness, some of that is because of the lack of flexibility for all the areas that we have discussed, such as debt servicing and so on. Correct me if I am wrong and being somewhat pessimistic.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
To be honest, I would like to hear you say that you have definitive plans to get to an equitable split the next time that you have two people stepping down. The problem with the perception of meritocracy is that if women never get the chance, they never get the chance to demonstrate merit. We have had that cyclical problem for a long time and it is heavily pronounced in financial services. I am interested to know a bit more about your specific plans. Given where we are, what target do you aim to reach in two years’ time? Do you have a target?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
Do you have anything to add, Aidan?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
Good morning, and thank you for joining us. To pick up on a point that the convener made, I never have any difficulty finding the stats, because I simply search for the key item on my laptop. Such are the joys of digital technology, convener.
I want to pick up on cybersecurity and, in general, ask about your assessment of the challenges and opportunities brought about by artificial intelligence. One of the challenges is that, in general terms, none of us knows. Specifically, I would make the case that the public sector is not at the cutting edge. What assessment have you made of the advent of AI, and particularly the sensitivities around data that you have outlined? What challenges do you see, how are you addressing them and what are the opportunities?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
Thank you very much for that. You have identified the concerns with the process that will, thankfully, be picked up and we will carry on progressing it.
Perhaps I should have tagged my final question in with my first one. It is about where you are delegating responsibility. Although you remain accountable, responsibility lies elsewhere, such as with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. Given what you outline in terms of protecting the integrity of your data and so on, how are you monitoring the risks of delegation? Will you talk me through that?
