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 2841 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Douglas Lumsden
Thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Douglas Lumsden
My point is about how this is going to work. The Climate Change Committee will produce a report in the spring, and it is working on that already. Earlier, you seemed to suggest that the committee’s delaying things here would, in turn, delay that report. However, as I understand it, that report is coming out anyway—the CCC is already working on it. If this committee wanted to take more evidence, and if that were to delay matters by a month, that would not delay the CCC’s report, would it? Hence, it would not delay the climate change plan that we are expecting.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Douglas Lumsden
I move to the next question. Last week, the CCC said that it had recommended that you should align with the UK carbon budget periods. However, the Scottish Government is not planning to do that. What is your reasoning?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Douglas Lumsden
But you would have a section 36 report only once every five years, if the main budget was missed.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Grangemouth Industrial Cluster
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Douglas Lumsden
I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement.
This is bad news not just for the hundreds of workers—and their families—who are directly employed by Petroineos but for the wider supply chain in the area. However, the news is not unexpected to the devolved Government. Michael Matheson, the former Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport, met Petroineos as far back as February 2022 and discussed options for a just transition for Grangemouth workers. In addition, we had a statement in February this year from Màiri McAllan. The Government has known that the situation has been coming for the past 31 months, but it seems that little has been done to prepare for the future, with the acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy admitting last week that project willow was only just starting. Why has the Scottish Government achieved so little in the 31 months that it has known that this was coming? Will the Scottish National Party Government accept responsibility that it is its narrative and its presumption against oil and gas that has got us to where we are now? The SNP is driving away investment and driving away jobs.
Meeting of the Parliament
Programme for Government (Growing Scotland’s Green Economy)
Meeting date: 12 September 2024
Douglas Lumsden
On carbon capture, utilisation and storage, the Scottish Government announced £80 million of funding more than two years ago. We have had clarification that £2 million is going to be coming imminently. Is there a timescale for when the £80 million will be spent?
Meeting of the Parliament
Programme for Government (Growing Scotland’s Green Economy)
Meeting date: 12 September 2024
Douglas Lumsden
Any way that we can improve the market for hydrogen would be a good thing.
To go back to my point, if we are producing hydrogen, let us use it in this country to make things ourselves that can then be exported, and not just export the hydrogen itself. As for carbon capture, use and storage—about which I made an intervention earlier—I would have liked to see more detail on that. The Scottish National Party Government announced £80 million to support the Scottish cluster more than two years ago, but very little has been spent. I am a bit disappointed about the lack of detail on that in the strategy.
To deliver an industrial strategy, we need to make sure that we have the correct infrastructure in place around Scotland. When will roads such as the A9 and A96 be dualled? Those are key projects for the north-east but they are lacking any timetable, detail or budgetary considerations.
Yesterday, we debated ScotRail and the importance of rail as key to meeting our net zero targets when it comes to transport. Yet, the devolved SNP Government is doing everything that it can to push people off the trains and make them increasingly reliant on cars.
The Scottish Conservatives continue to be the only voice in the Parliament sticking up for the oil and gas sector, appreciating its vital place in our move to net zero and green energy. We are committed to prioritising energy security through a balanced mix of energy sources that will ensure our energy security for decades to come. We want to see more people on our trains—
Meeting of the Parliament
Programme for Government (Growing Scotland’s Green Economy)
Meeting date: 12 September 2024
Douglas Lumsden
Will the member take an intervention?
Meeting of the Parliament
Programme for Government (Growing Scotland’s Green Economy)
Meeting date: 12 September 2024
Douglas Lumsden
I will start by sharing our concerns about the announcement on Grangemouth today; our thoughts are with all the workers and families that we have relied on for decades to keep the lights on and keep the country moving.
Today’s debate was supposed to be about the programme for government and growing Scotland’s green economy. It was supposed to be an opportunity to focus on what the Scottish Government has achieved—or not achieved—over the past 17 years and what it plans to do to fix its mistakes over the next 18 months. Instead, we have a strategy document that was published yesterday, which focuses on a narrow part of our net zero ambition and misses out a huge tranche of policy work that the Parliament should be discussing.
We should be discussing the fact that the devolved Scottish National Party Government has missed eight of its 12 net zero targets, and the fact that funding has been cut in key areas that would help us to achieve our net zero targets. Those key areas of policy impact every one of us and our constituents. The transport, net zero and just transition budget was cut by £29.3 million; the rail services budget was cut by £80 million; the just transition fund was cut by three quarters; and support for sustainable travel was cut by 60 per cent.
Meeting of the Parliament
Programme for Government (Growing Scotland’s Green Economy)
Meeting date: 12 September 2024
Douglas Lumsden
I am sure that mistakes were made in the past as growing industries came forward and that all Governments could look back and want to change how things were done.
The future transport fund has been cut by 60 per cent; the green economy budget has been cut completely; the energy efficiency and decarbonisation budget has been cut by £9.3 million; and the energy transition budget has been cut by £33 million. I can see why the cabinet secretary would rather not talk about that today.
