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 1152 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
Certainly, I agree that the Scottish Government could do with a much bigger pie, too—that would be a huge help.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
Mary Senior, you have already spoken about inflation, meaning that flat cash is decreasing in value. Like Ross Greer, I have huge sympathy with that point, but there is no getting away from that fact that the Scottish Government’s budget is also fixed. In reality, the Scottish Government’s limited powers over taxation mean that increasing university budgets means cutting other budgets. Wider cuts to health, social care, transport and so on will have an impact on student health, mental health and wellbeing, as well as on the rest of society.
You also spoke about the reality of international students plugging the funding gap. What are the biggest risks around that shift in majority funding from SFC to international and UK student fees? What risks does that present for Scotland’s universities and students?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
How helpful is the resource spending trajectory for the next four years? Is there anything around climate that you want to mention?
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
To ask the Scottish Government how the cost of living crisis is impacting its Covid recovery strategy. (S6O-01383)
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
Last week, I met Matthew Cole, who is the head of the Fuel Bank Foundation, which is an organisation that mainly provides help for customers on pre-payment meters who are at real risk of having their energy supply cut off.
Given that the Tory United Kingdom Government has decided to prioritise the wealthy at the expense of ordinary families, what powers does the Scottish Government need in order to realise Scotland’s energy potential and to ensure that nobody has their lights and heating cut off when they do not have the cash to top up fuel?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Winter Planning
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
I do not have one on that topic.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Winter Planning
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
In relation to the cost of living crisis, the UK Government has made some changes recently, but those do not seem to do much to help the most vulnerable people. I am thinking, for example, about people who have prepayment meters, for whom the lights go off when the money runs out, and people in rural areas who have oil tanks and coal bunkers, which cost big, big sums to refill. What impact do you expect such issues to have on the national health service and social care?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Winter Planning
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
My question is for Donna Bell. Last week, I met the chief executive officer of Enable Scotland and we spoke about the high-quality self-directed health and social care that is provided through Enable Scotland’s successful personal assistant model, which is an example of how focusing on individuals and building the care and support around the person’s own needs and priorities can improve not only outcomes but costs down the line.
Thinking about the ambitions of the new national care service, my question is around doing things differently. First, can you give any examples of positive innovations in social care that are improving people’s lives and, secondly, any examples of how scaling up such innovations could influence sustainability in the social care sector, with the national care service?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Winter Planning
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
I have two questions that I will ask together, which will hopefully speed things up a little. Earlier today, Caroline Lamb highlighted the negative impacts of the current cost of living and fuel poverty on wellbeing and on mental health in particular.
My first question is about patients. What increases in demand do you expect to see in relation to mental health support and primary care services over winter, and how does your board plan to manage them?
My second question is about staff. What impact will increases in living costs and fuel have on NHS staff, and what actions is your board considering to support employees over the winter months?
I will start with Dr Armstrong. Jeff Ace and Dr Coldwells are of course welcome to add anything.
11:30Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Skills Delivery Landscape
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
How will the independent review assess the progress of green skills development in schools and higher education as we move towards transforming our economy and society? Given that those things have been set out in the climate emergency skills action plan, we must ensure that we achieve the mix of skills and job specifications needed to thrive in a net zero economy.
