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 1242 contributions
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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Paul McLennan
I refer everyone to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which states that I am a serving councillor on East Lothian Council.
We have heard a few people talking this morning about the resource implications for planning authorities. As colleagues have said, we were speaking to Celebrate Kilmarnock yesterday, and one of the things that came up in that discussion was resources for local groups that want to develop their ideas. The question is one of capacity building.
Perhaps Clare Symonds can respond to my first question, followed by Barbara Cummins. NPF4 might include policies to help communities and groups, but if they do not have the resources to implement the policies, we will get nowhere. What are the witnesses’ views on that?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee (Virtual)
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 18 January 2022
Paul McLennan
I have a question about deliverability, which was mentioned. It is difficult to monitor delivery, because every local authority is in a different position. Is there a mechanism for measuring it? If a local authority is seven or eight years into the 10-year timeframe but has delivered only 20 per cent of its allocation, that will obviously create a problem. Do you look at that, within local authorities and in Scotland overall?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee (Virtual)
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 18 January 2022
Paul McLennan
My question comes back to the point that Miles Briggs raised and is about the deliverability of renewables. Yesterday, we had the ScotWind announcement, which is great news, and substantial planning requirements will come out of it. My first question is for Fiona Simpson. ScotWind presents major opportunities on top of the existing renewables applications that are going through. What consideration has been given to resourcing the planning system in that regard? NPF4 is all about deliverability. Do we have the resources in place to deliver on the current renewables proposals and the ScotWind proposals?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee (Virtual)
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 18 January 2022
Paul McLennan
That is helpful, and it is good to know. I will probably pick that up in future discussions. No doubt, we will discuss NPF4 regularly in the next few months. I will raise the issue further down the line once the consultation is finished.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee (Virtual)
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 18 January 2022
Paul McLennan
I should have referred the committee previously to my entry in the members’ register of interests; I am a serving councillor on East Lothian Council.
I would like Fiona Simpson to expand on the minimum all-tenure-housing land requirement. I have a couple of questions. There is a 10-year timeframe; you have touched on how the changes in housing will be accounted for during that period, and you mentioned the housing need and demand assessments in local authorities.
How will the approach link with local housing strategies? As we know, 10 years is a long time in terms of planning requirements; I come back to the issue of flexibility that you talked about. Do you want to add anything else on that? During my time as a councillor over the past 10 years, I have seen things change dramatically in my local authority. Can you touch on that, if you do not mind?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee (Virtual)
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 18 January 2022
Paul McLennan
Thank you.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee (Virtual)
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 11 January 2022
Paul McLennan
My colleagues will ask questions on ring fencing later, so I will leave it to them to talk about that. You are head of local government at Unison, but I know that you represent not only local government but other parts of the Scottish economy, which is why I asked that question.
I have been a councillor for the past 15 years, and you will know that there are additional pressures relating to Covid. The consequentials for that came through last year but not this year. As we know, there are still pressures on local authorities to deliver services, which have been impacted by Covid. That issue has been raised with the United Kingdom Government. Do you have any thoughts on that aspect?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee (Virtual)
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 11 January 2022
Paul McLennan
I know that analysis has been done, and I know that that is not the easiest piece of work to do, as I said to Gail Macgregor, but will there be a stage in the next month or two when COSLA will say, for instance, that it needs an extra £200 million or £300 million to get it through? Will there be a point where you can work out approximately how much would be required from the UK Government to come down through consequentials and so on? To return to a point that Gail Macgregor mentioned, it could then be a matter of liaising with the Scottish Government to ask the UK Government about that. Will there be a point soon when we will know an approximate figure that could be required? We can talk about the £371 million that COSLA highlights. We can dispute it one way or another, but could the additional funding that would come through help to negate that figure?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee (Virtual)
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 11 January 2022
Paul McLennan
Obviously, we can ask the cabinet secretary about that. Has COSLA estimated—
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee (Virtual)
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 11 January 2022
Paul McLennan
On the additional Covid pressures, has COSLA estimated, or asked local authorities for their estimates of, the additional costs that have come through? I know that East Lothian Council, which is my local authority, has done that. I appreciate that that is not the easiest piece work to do, but is there an approximate figure that COSLA has arrived at to say that the pressures for the next year that are directly related to Covid will be £X? If there is going to be an ask made of the UK Government and if consequentials are to come through, what are we asking for?
