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 1160 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Paul Sweeney
Although it is encouraging that the Government’s response has indicated the forthcoming legislation, it is important to give the petitioner some degree of assurance that the specifics of the legislation will address the concerns that are outlined in the petition and also perhaps offer a degree of assurance about more immediate measures that could be put in place. In order to satisfy the petitioner’s concerns, a more specific response from the minister would be helpful.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Paul Sweeney
I agree with Bill Kidd. The principle has broad agreement across Parliament and there is a desire to do something. It is a question of legality and the potential unintended consequences that might affect DWP qualification. It is a grey area that needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later. We need to firm up the devolution of social security and how interactions between DWP and Social Security Scotland perform. The petition presents an extremely opportune way of doing that.
10:30With that in mind, it would be helpful to invite further submissions from, for example, the MS Society, Citizens Advice Scotland, the alliance
, the Neurological Alliance of Scotland and Parkinson’s UK. I highlight those groups as an indication of those who made submissions on the petition in the first instance or that indicated support for it.
We need to chip away to get the issue sorted out. Although it is a technical issue, given the severe harm that is potentially caused to people, getting the matter resolved sooner rather than later would be more helpful than deferring it. We should try to get the system designed and fixed quicker than would perhaps otherwise happen.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Paul Sweeney
I am sympathetic, because it is an on-going and worthwhile discussion. In the 1990s, the Scottish Constitutional Convention established the additional member system as the preferred electoral system, but perhaps there is an on-going need to consider alternatives. Obviously, the single transferable vote for local government elections was introduced in the mid-2000s. There have been observations of concerning practices in the most recent Scottish Parliament elections; most notably, the Greens were perhaps stymied in some instances by a decoy green party, which was higher up the list and seduced votes away from the Greens. I certainly noticed that at the Glasgow count, so there are flaws with the current list structure of two ballots, which are worth further investigation.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Paul Sweeney
Those are helpful points. Will you give us some reflections on the experience of Skyscanner as a Scottish unicorn tech company but one that is now under foreign ownership. Does that example show that we need to do more to build Scottish companies that remain under Scottish ownership, which could create the ecosystem that we are talking about?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Interests
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Paul Sweeney
Thank you, convener. I have no relevant interests to declare.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Paul Sweeney
That is helpful. I have a question about the future skills action plan, which aims to increase the flexibility of the skills system. The focus is on a meta skills approach that will better equip individuals to navigate a labour market that is more fluid than ever—that is a lot of jargon. Are there clear examples of countries that are getting that right? Is there a benchmarking opportunity from which the Scottish Government and Scottish industry could learn?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Paul Sweeney
Thanks very much.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Paul Sweeney
This has been an interesting discussion. Digital and leadership skills have been highlighted as a gap in Scotland for several years. What have been the key barriers to reducing skills gaps in those areas? I would like Professor Logan to answer that question first.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Paul Sweeney
That is helpful. Mr Hunter, would you like to come in?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 3 November 2021
Paul Sweeney
The sentiments of the petition are well founded. In recent years, we have seen a number of alarming and distressing incidents of war memorials being desecrated in Scotland. It is certainly worth while reviewing the measures and protocols in the light of such incidents, so it might be appropriate to keep the petition open to allow for further submissions.
It might be appropriate to ask the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for its views on the protocols that are in place across the country for maintaining war memorials and ensuring that they are kept in good order. Consideration could be given to whether any improvements could be made, instead of introducing new legislation, given the Scottish Government’s position. A member might also want to consider introducing a member’s bill on the matter.
At this stage, it might be appropriate to keep the petition open to at least allow for further submissions.
