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 1525 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Department for Work and Pensions (Devolved Social Security)
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
Did that answer your question, Pam?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Department for Work and Pensions (Devolved Social Security)
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
Thank you very much for your opening statement. I will move straight to questions from members. There is a lot of interest in putting questions to the minister, so I urge my colleagues, if a question has been answered, to reframe their questions a little to allow enough time for discussion.
We will look at five broad themes. The first is UK disability benefit reform. We will then move on to questions on passported benefits, then on to case transfer, then on to Scottish child payment data sharing and, finally, we will have questions on the fiscal framework review. I will start off with my colleague, Miles Briggs, who is in the room, then we will move on to Pam Duncan-Glancy, who is also in the room
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Department for Work and Pensions (Devolved Social Security)
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
I will hand over now to Jeremy Balfour for his questions. Marie McNair has had her question on the scheme answered. We will then go back to Pam Duncan-Glancy after that.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Department for Work and Pensions (Devolved Social Security)
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
Emma Roddick has questions on this theme, too. Broadcasting are hopeful that we have a better connection, so let us try again.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
Yes. I am content for us to write to seek clarity on those points. Do members agree that we should do that?
Members indicated agreement.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Department for Work and Pensions (Devolved Social Security)
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
The next theme is case transfer. I know that Jeremy Balfour has had his question answered, so we will move on to questions from Pam Duncan-Glancy.
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests: I am a serving councillor in East Ayrshire.
The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has added the voice of Scotland’s local authorities to that of the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament in calling on the Home Secretary to step up the United Kingdom’s resettlement programme for Ukrainian refugees, citing the expertise of Scotland’s strategic migration partnership in supporting refugees and migrants and integrating them into our communities.
Notwithstanding today’s announcement about digital visas, will the minister comment on the Home Secretary’s claim that the UK is “doing everything possible” to speed up the remarkably slow roll-out of the visa scheme to Ukrainian refugees, especially in light of the full willingness of COSLA and our councils to play their part in Europe-wide efforts?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Carmont Passenger Train Derailment
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
My thoughts, too, are with everybody who has been impacted by this tragedy.
Rail incidents in Scotland are rare, but we should not underestimate the impact that any derailment or incident has on the wellbeing of drivers, other staff who are on board and passengers. Some of the findings of the report, which is harrowing to read, relate to the crashworthiness of the train and, especially, the glass in the windows. Can the minister say what more can be done to ensure that the trains that people work and travel in are as safe as they can be?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Elena Whitham
The cabinet secretary will recognise the immense outpouring of empathy and willingness from citizens right across Scotland to provide assistance and shelter in response to the humanitarian plight of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion. In my constituency, several efforts are in progress right now to take refugees into people’s homes in the area. However, as we do not have control over borders, can the cabinet secretary provide an update on the discussions that are taking place with the United Kingdom Government to cut the red tape and get folk here?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
Elena Whitham
Thank you, convener. I was reflecting on your suggestion about looking across the world for examples of how different countries operate. I can give an example that we should never follow. I grew up in Montreal, which is predominantly a city of renters, most of whom rent from the private sector. Leases run to 1 July every year. Every year on 1 July, about 70,000 households move. It is called Montreal moving day madness. We should never seek to emulate any such system.
My question reflects the issue that Miles Briggs raised, which Mark Griffin also touched on. We know that the private rented sector is a huge help to us in addressing homelessness. For many years, those who have been at risk of homelessness or who have been homeless have used the private rented sector to get secure tenancies. The changes that were made in 2016 strengthened those arrangements.
However, we know that, before the pandemic, there were a lot of evictions in the private rented sector. Do you think that the two specific provisions that we are considering will help to reduce that number? Do you think that they capture the recommendations from the reconvened HARSAG group, the social renewal advisory board’s housing policy circle and the Scotland prevention review group, which is now consulting on the prevention duties? I wish that those had been looked at in the early 2000s, when the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Bill was first considered. I would like to hear your thoughts on those issues.
