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 2620 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Douglas Lumsden
It was about the problem of due process.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Douglas Lumsden
Is the issue that Government is focused on short-term goals as opposed to looking at the longer term? It could be 10 or 15 years before today’s children start moving into the industrial workforce.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Douglas Lumsden
Does Government need to work more closely with industry to work out what the needs are and consult with it more instead of just doing general consultation?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Douglas Lumsden
Yes, government by WhatsApp is something that the committee has discussed before.
Is there a proper review process for looking back on policy decisions in years to come—on whether a decision was the right one or on what we could have done differently—and trying to learn for the future?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Douglas Lumsden
I guess that you would say that, in the end, it is for the long-term benefit of Scotland plc.
12:00Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Douglas Lumsden
We have the national performance framework in Scotland. Are the decisions that the Government is taking aligned properly with the NPF right at the start?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Douglas Lumsden
I have a question about the recording of ministerial decisions. This is perhaps a question for you, Alex, given your experience. Is there a robust process or system in place so that when ministers approve something, a record of that decision is kept and could perhaps be looked at later to check who approved a certain thing?
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 20 April 2023
Douglas Lumsden
Connectivity between the Port of Aberdeen and the freeport in Cromarty will be vital for the north-east economy, so will the First Minister grow a backbone, stand up to the Greens and fully dual the A96, as promised?
Meeting of the Parliament
Scotland’s Finances and Wellbeing Economy
Meeting date: 19 April 2023
Douglas Lumsden
I have no time. Sorry.
Scotland deserves a Government that is able to deliver economic growth, financial stability and hope for the future. Instead, we have a Green-SNP coalition that stifles growth and has lost the confidence of business and the population of Scotland. Its record on economic management of this country is woeful, and it is time for it to listen to the business community, the middle-income taxpayers, the experts in this area and even Kenny Gibson, who are asking it to stop increasing taxes, widen the tax base and truly create a wellbeing economy for everyone.
Meeting of the Parliament
Scotland’s Finances and Wellbeing Economy
Meeting date: 19 April 2023
Douglas Lumsden
The dog may have a new head, but it is the same tail wagging it. Economic growth in Scotland is hindered by this coalition of chaos, with many of those on the front bench who had business experience having been sacked and the Greens continuing to hold sway over policy and pull the strings.
What is most concerning is that it is Scottish business and the Scottish public who will suffer the most. Our economy is lagging significantly behind the UK economy. Despite the nonsense that the First Minister said last week, Scotland’s GDP grew at a lower rate than that of the rest of the UK during Nicola Sturgeon’s reign. That is an absolute disgrace and highlights the severe mismanagement of the Scottish economy by this devolved Government.
According to the Scottish Fiscal Commission, Scotland’s finances are unsustainable. It stated:
“the Scottish Government will face significant challenges in funding the future provision of devolved public services in Scotland.”
The Scottish Fiscal Commission continued its gloomy outlook by stating that
“our economic projections show Scottish GDP growing by an average of 1.2% each year for the next 50 years,”
which is lower than similar projections for the UK.
Social security spend is increasing massively. Health spending is going from 35 per cent of devolved spending to 50 per cent. Policies such as universal basic income are simply fiscally unsustainable, and the Fraser of Allander Institute found that business confidence in Scotland was low.
All of those points demonstrate the SNP’s profound financial mismanagement of Scotland’s finances and economic growth. That is hardly surprising when we consider that the SNP cannot even manage its own party finances.
Taxing the middle-income earners of this country—our teachers, nurses and public sector workers—will not have the effect that the Government believes that it will have. It will drive middle income earners away from Scotland. The Scottish Fiscal Commission expects the Scottish population to fall by 8 per cent, while the UK population will increase by 5 per cent.
The SNP needs to work out why that is. Is it because it has cultured a deeply divided country, or is it because Scotland pays more tax than the rest of the UK? This devolved Government is driving earners away, and that needs to be reversed.
The Scottish Conservatives absolutely support the drive towards a wellbeing economy, but that starts by building up business, increasing wages and reducing household costs. The SNP Government has lost the confidence of businesses, is taking more from people’s pay packets, and seems hellbent on shutting off our energy supplies in the North Sea.
We want to see this devolved Government work with the UK Government to establish projects that will grow our economy for the benefit of us all, whether that is investment into freeports, levelling up or investment zones. We want to see this devolved Government take responsibility for the years of failure and work towards a Scotland that works for everyone instead of conjuring up grievance and blaming Westminster at every opportunity.
