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 1824 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Katy Clark
The First Minister made it clear that COSLA is not in control of its own budgets. Will the minister meet Unison to discuss how the dispute can finally be resolved?
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Katy Clark
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it is taking to resolve industrial action in schools. (S6T-01599)
Meeting of the Parliament
Fire Service
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Katy Clark
The member is absolutely correct that the challenges that the fire service faces from the climate are going to be greater. In addition, as I will demonstrate in my contribution, the response times to incidents have been increasing as a result of budgetary pressures.
The number of available appliances across Scotland has also diminished, and the chief officer says that dozens more appliances will have to be withdrawn if the current planned real-terms cuts proceed. Many stations are in a state of disrepair because of the lack of adequate capital budgets.
The impact of all that is clear. Last year, it was revealed that the average time to attend 999 calls was eight minutes and eight seconds—a significant jump from the six minutes and 50 seconds that was recorded as an average in 2013. That is far from the stated policy intentions that were set out when the service was centralised. The policy memorandum that accompanied the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Bill in 2012 said that the intention was
“not cutting front line services.”
Chief Officer Ross Haggart has indicated that, as a result of the flat-cash budgets, the service will be required to make savings of £36 million in the next four years to balance its budget.
In September, second or third appliances were temporarily withdrawn from 10 fire stations across Scotland as part of an £11 million package of cuts for this year. The number of high-reach appliances was reduced, and that means more risk.
Since then, concerns have been raised about the increased time that high-reach appliances take to attend incidents in, for example, Ayr, East Kilbride and elsewhere. Freedom of information answers that were recently released to my office show that full-time fire appliances were “off the run”, or unavailable, 6,272 times in 2022, which represents a 138 per cent increase since 2013. In his evidence to the Criminal Justice Committee, Mr Haggart told us that if further cuts proceed next year, the SFRS might have to reduce the number of appliances by a further 17 per cent.
Firefighters have also had a pay cut of about 12 per cent in real terms during the past 10 years. We know that those workers put their lives on the line for us. Earlier this year, firefighter Barry Martin died as a result of injuries that he sustained in the Jenners fire. Research shows that firefighter cancer rates are 1.6 times higher than the rates for the rest of the public as a result of exposure to dangerous contaminants, and yet, in many cases, firefighters in Scotland do not have adequate spaces in which to wash, or adequate equipment.
In the “Firestorm” survey, many firefighters say that they have access only to baby wipes after incidents. Several describe decontamination as the “biggest issue” for staff, with others submitting that they are “extremely” worried about their health. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has a duty of care to its employees, and a duty to provide safe systems of work. I understand that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is working on guidelines, and I ask the Minister for Victims and Community Safety to provide an update to ensure that the service is meeting its legal obligations as an employer.
Research by my office found that three quarters of stations are assessed as being of “bad” or “poor” suitability. Indeed, not a single station in the region that I represent is assessed as “good”. Tackling those issues will take sustained investment, and yet there is already a capital backlog of £630 million.
The fire service has faced a decade of cuts. Response times have increased, and the chief officer says that they will continue to increase if the proposed cuts go ahead. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is failing in its duty as an employer to provide a safe system of work. I call on the Scottish Government to bring forward an emergency funding package.
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Katy Clark
Will the Scottish Government set out a timescale to get to a minimum of £15 per hour pay for all local government workers?
Meeting of the Parliament
Covid-19 Inquiries (Scottish Government’s Provision of Information)
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Katy Clark
The Deputy First Minister has not made it clear whether the Scottish Government complied with its own policy, which is that salient WhatsApp messages should be saved, at least on the centralised records system. Can she confirm that that is normally what happens, and can she confirm whether it happened in relation to Covid messages? Can she confirm whether Covid records policy was reviewed on receipt of the “Do not destroy” notices?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Katy Clark
—for the person waiting for the money, that is not an acceptable position, is it?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Katy Clark
We also know from Social Security Scotland’s figures for May 2023 that 40 per cent of all applications for the adult disability payment were rejected. Although that is slightly lower than the average 47 per cent rejection rate for applications for personal independence payment across the UK, it is also an extremely high rejection rate. Has the Government identified the factors that need to be addressed to reduce that rate? Does the cabinet secretary have an explanation as to why rejection rates are so high?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Katy Clark
You have explained that, cabinet secretary. You have made very clear the differences in the system, but—
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Katy Clark
Statistics have previously shown that people in Scotland are waiting longer for their adult disability payment decision from Social Security Scotland than people in England and Wales who have applied for the personal independence payment through the DWP. The average wait time for an adult disability decision is around 19 weeks, in comparison to nine weeks for the personal independence payment decision, and the wait times have doubled over the past year. What steps is Social Security Scotland taking to reduce those waiting times?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Katy Clark
Yes, just briefly. As I understand it, young people continue to get child disability payment for a short period after they turn 19 if their adult disability payment is decided within four weeks of their 19th birthday. However, the wait times are currently longer than four weeks. Can you provide reassurance about what happens to those individuals who are transferring from child disability payment to adult disability payment?
