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 5780 contributions
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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
Thank you, Liz. If they do not, please make sure that we hear what you want to say.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
That was about the bigger picture. From talking to the minister, I know that he is very firm that the priority in the national planning framework is the climate and biodiversity or nature crises and how we can tackle them. In practical terms, what does the requirement for decision makers to give significant weight to the global climate and nature crises mean for development management and development planning across Scotland? I open that to anyone who wants to pick that up.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
Thank you for that comprehensive response. I think that the committee will look at the subject later, in 2023.
Clare Symonds would like to come in. Could I ask everyone to keep their answers a bit more succinct? That would be helpful, because we still have quite a few questions to get through.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
Clare Symonds was going to come in next on Paul McLennan’s questions on the development programme and monitoring.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
Some interesting points have been made and some big questions raised on infrastructure-led development. That was an interesting perspective.
I call Annie Wells, who joins us online.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
Thank you for those responses. I will move to Willie Coffey, who has been patiently waiting.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
Thank you for that. So that we know where we are going, I note that we have perhaps four more questions. I will pass over to Miles Briggs.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
What was the rationale for taking a different approach to the number of dogs when it comes to rough shooting compared with other types of hunting with dogs? If the rationale was to improve workability, the approach seems unnecessary, according to the Wild Animal Welfare Committee. I would like to hear your response to its statement that
“Section 6(2)(c)”
of the bill as drafted
“takes a proportionate approach in requiring the person to take reasonable steps to ensure that a dog does not join with others to form a pack: it should be possible for anyone in this situation to demonstrate that such steps had been taken. A genuinely accidental or unintended situation is unlikely to be viewed as an offence”.
It sounds to me as though that section of the bill is workable, but I would welcome your opinion on that.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
I agree in principle, but I think that we are none the wiser, and we almost need a back to basics understanding of legal language. I feel like I need to go back and look at the Official Report, because, at some point early on, in answer to question 3, the witnesses started saying that it is about two dogs per activity. We are talking about shooters and all sorts of things—
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
I know, but if, after hearing from the bill team, we do not get that it is per activity and we are not clear, I do not know that inviting a whole load of other people in will make things clearer. I know that the majority of members will say, “Let’s do it,” and I will go with the majority, but I do not know whether that will give us what we need. We have spent a lot of time on the issue already.
