Chamber and committees

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.

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.

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Meeting of the Parliament

Budget (Scotland) (No 2) Bill: Stage 3

Meeting date: 21 February 2023

Douglas Lumsden

This feels a bit like groundhog day although, in the film, Phil predicted six more weeks of winter and in Scotland we face three years more of doom and gloom under the SNP-Green devolved Government. There is extra money for local government at the last minute, from the Derek Mackay sofa—once again, groundhog day. Higher taxes, reduced local government spending, a lack of support for business and a lack of focus on economic growth paint a dismal and bleak picture for the economic prosperity of Scotland over the next couple of years, regardless of who the new leader is.

Today, I will concentrate on the crisis that is faced by our colleagues in local government. Regardless of what the Deputy First Minister says today, it is a crisis. I have been in local government and, now, the Scottish Parliament for six years, and budget time is always one of the most depressing of times. The Scottish Government tells us how great the local government settlement is; local government sets the record straight; then there is some last-minute cash, just as we have seen today. That is hardly a case of partnership working—and this year is no different.

Meeting of the Parliament

Budget (Scotland) (No 2) Bill: Stage 3

Meeting date: 21 February 2023

Douglas Lumsden

Members say, “Oh!”, but I feel that I led a council of ambition, unlike the SNP-Lib Dem coalition that is in place just now.

Members should forget the nonsense of a real-terms budget increase. The budget is a cut to local government funding when those extra commitments are factored in.

COSLA has made a series of statements over the past few months with dire warnings over the future of services in our local communities. It has described the budget settlement as having

“a detrimental impact on vital local services”.

Over the past week, we have heard a lot about legacy. That is some legacy—cuts to local services, to the detriment of our communities. We know that many local authorities are planning for significant job losses as a result of the cut to their budget. According to a COSLA report, up to 7,000 jobs will be lost should the budget be passed today. Many of those will be in education, which we know to be in crisis.

However, the Scottish Government has now come in with threats and intimidation. Rather than funding councils properly, it is threatening to withhold funding for any that do not toe the line. One can imagine the outcry if the UK Government imposed as many conditions as this Government is imposing on the local government budget. That is shocking behaviour from this Government. Instead of valuing and working with our local government friends, it threatens and intimidates. Instead of the Government meeting COSLA leaders to discuss a way forward, they have been faced with a blank wall. Ministers are refusing to meet with leaders and are turning their backs on local government.

I welcome the U-turn today on Creative Scotland funding; I hope that the Government now recognises the value in culture. However, I did not hear anything about men’s sheds. SNP members have signed the Deputy Presiding Officer’s letter condemning cuts to the men’s shed budget, and yet they will vote today to cut that funding.

We always get warm words from SNP colleagues but, when push comes to shove, they will fall in line and vote for these appalling measures.

This budget does not plan for growth—it plans for decline. That means decline in our public services; in our councils; in our communities, towns and villages; and in the amount of money in the pockets of hard-working Scots.

Nonetheless, the Government continues to pursue policies that everyone thinks are a bad idea. The national care service is a prime example; I can only hope that the new First Minister swiftly puts a stop to that policy and diverts the money to local authorities. I welcome Ash Regan’s comments in the press today that she would pause the roll-out so we can have a proper co-design process.

Trade unions can see it, and even the SNP back benchers see it: the national care service is a disaster waiting to happen, and it will be the Scottish taxpayer who will have to pick up the tab. Delaying that vanity project until we have a new First Minister would surely be the most sensible approach.

In closing, I once again appeal to the Deputy First Minister to reconsider, even at this late stage. He should meet council leaders to discuss their concerns and listen at first hand to what the impact of the appalling cut to their finances will mean for the essential services in our communities: the impact on early intervention and prevention, social care, education, school building programmes, refuse collection, community funding, men’s sheds and music tuition in schools. He should reallocate the money that is set aside for the national care service, and he should plan for growth, reinstate the cuts to men’s sheds and give local authorities the money that they need to continue to deliver the vital services on which we all rely.

Meeting of the Parliament

Victims Awareness Week

Meeting date: 21 February 2023

Douglas Lumsden

Yesterday, I visited an Aberdeen police station to talk to some of the officers. They spoke about the huge backlog in the courts system. Does the minister accept that that backlog adds a lot of stress to the victims of crime and that the more we can do to remove it, the better for the victims?

Meeting of the Parliament

A9 Dualling

Meeting date: 8 February 2023

Douglas Lumsden

The delay to the A9 project will have a knock-on effect on other road projects. The A96 was meant to be fully dualled by 2030. Will that commitment be met?