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 1502 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Kaukab Stewart
Does the Deputy First Minister agree that it would be good to know whether, ahead of tomorrow’s budget statement, Sharon Dowey or any of her Tory colleagues have made any representations to the UK Government about Scotland being granted borrowing powers to allow the Scottish Government to manage its budget effectively and respond to the repeated economic shocks that have been created by the ill-judged and damaging economic policies of the UK Government?
Meeting of the Parliament
International Human Rights Days
Meeting date: 8 December 2022
Kaukab Stewart
Does Annie Wells accept the hypocrisy of Westminster using one hand to donate money to the Ukraine efforts but using the other hand to keep asylum seekers—many of whom are fleeing wars—in inhumane conditions in the Manston immigration centre, where children go missing, there have been diphtheria outbreaks and people have died?
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 8 December 2022
Kaukab Stewart
The discovery of the breakthrough drug lecanemab is exceptionally welcome news and offers real hope for Alzheimer’s sufferers and their families. Professor Tara Spires-Jones and the research team at the University of Edinburgh are to be congratulated on that development.
However, is the minister familiar with childhood dementia, a condition that is caused by more than 70 genetic disorders that, together, account for almost as many deaths in children as cancer? There is no cure and there are very few treatments that can even slow it down. Will Kevin Stewart commit to taking cognisance of that devastating but little-known condition when developing the new dementia strategy?
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Attainment Challenge (Local Authority Stretch Aims)
Meeting date: 8 December 2022
Kaukab Stewart
Will the cabinet secretary set out what impact the cost of living crisis and the UK Government’s wholly inadequate response to it will have on our national mission to tackle the poverty-related attainment gap and will she set out what action the Scottish Government is taking to support families through the crisis?
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 8 December 2022
Kaukab Stewart
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the next steps for the national conversation to inform a new dementia strategy, which closed to responses on 5 December. (S6O-01670)
Meeting of the Parliament
International Human Rights Days
Meeting date: 8 December 2022
Kaukab Stewart
Will the member take an intervention?
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Education System
Meeting date: 7 December 2022
Kaukab Stewart
I will.
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Education System
Meeting date: 7 December 2022
Kaukab Stewart
I always welcome the opportunity to debate Scottish education in a constructive spirit, but I must reflect on the unremittingly negative approach of the Tory motion. There is such a lack of acknowledgement of the excellent work that is done by teachers, the incredible achievements of pupils around the country and the international standing of our further and higher education institutions. One must assume that the goal of such a motion is not to improve but to undermine, and not to support or sustain but to insult and injure.
As recently as 8 November, Stephen Kerr said in the chamber:
“We have one of the best-educated populations in the world”.—[Official Report, 8 November; c 79.]
He went on to say that we have always been at the forefront of innovation and development, but that is surely as a result of Scottish Government policy. I am not angry but very disappointed in the wording and tone, among other things, of Mr Kerr’s motion.
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Education System
Meeting date: 7 December 2022
Kaukab Stewart
The member knows fine well that we have the highest number of teachers that we have had for many years—since at least 2019, I believe.
Turning to our higher and further education sector—
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Education System
Meeting date: 7 December 2022
Kaukab Stewart
I will continue.
The policies include attainment challenge funding of more than £1 billion over this parliamentary session; 1,140 hours of quality early learning and childcare; the roll-out of digital devices for every schoolchild; the expansion of free school meal provision; an increase in school clothing grants; and investment in the school estate. [Interruption.]
On the day that this year’s exam results were published, I read a tweet from my colleague, Michael Marra, who wrote:
“Congratulations to all young people receiving results today. Whether celebrating or slightly down at heart please know that there are endless possibilities out there for you.”
He went on to say:
“Your achievements are also masking real problems in our education system.”
I would suggest that young people’s achievements, far from masking problems, reflect their own efforts, the quality of our education system and all those who work within it. I would further suggest to Mr Marra that the “endless possibilities” that he refers to reflect the Scottish Government’s commitment to making higher education free for young people, supporting our colleges sector and delivering foundation and modern apprenticeships.
