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 893 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Craig Hoy
You would concede, however, that there was some degree of political risk in proceeding.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Craig Hoy
CMAL expressed concerns to this committee about the razzmatazz and fanfare around the announcement of the preferred bidder status. Obviously, it thought at that point that that almost locked in the deal and that it would bind its hands in future negotiations. Did Transport Scotland advise Scottish ministers to perhaps consider a more discreet way to achieve the milestone of preferred bidder status?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Craig Hoy
Good morning, Mr Middleton. I want to look deeper into the issue of the builders refund guarantee and Jim McColl’s account of the discussions that he undertook with—he said—the Scottish Government and CMAL in developing a bid, in which, he says, you knew that they were not in a position to offer a builders refund guarantee. That is documented in an exchange of letters between Stuart McMillan and Derek Mackay in February 2015, in which it is intimated that it would be possible to proceed without a full builders refund guarantee. What was your awareness of that correspondence?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Craig Hoy
The letter of February 2015 has not been formally released to the committee, but it has been quoted in the press. Among the reports of that, Mr Mackay gives reassurance to Mr McMillan that it would be possible to proceed without a builders refund guarantee. Mr Mackay says that CMAL had, on occasion, “taken different approaches”. Are you aware of any “different approaches” in relation to that fundamental issue of a builders refund guarantee regarding any prior procurements?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Craig Hoy
The culture of Government appears to be quite tight, so it would be safe to assume that there were channels of communication.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Craig Hoy
Obviously, you were not there for the unveiling of preferred bidder status. However, it was said that you would take the lead on that announcement. Subsequently, something changed. Would it have been the First Minister’s office’s decision to press for that to be announced at a high-profile photo-shoot style event rather than, as Mr Middleton said, through the issuing of the usual contractual letters?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Craig Hoy
Are you a bit concerned that you were not there for the awarding of preferred bidder status but that everything seems to have hung on that decision and that there is a sense that, in effect, what happened afterwards was almost a fait accompli? With regard to the position of the Scottish Government and the First Minister, given that these documents have come to light, are you concerned that you are being lined up to be the fall guy—that this is operation blame Derek Mackay?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Craig Hoy
Mr Mackay, you said that all options on nationalisation had been exhausted, but I challenge that. Jim McColl said that he put to you a Queen’s counsel’s report that showed that a financial restructuring would have meant that he, FMEL and the Government would have split any future risk, potentially saving the taxpayer £100 million. He says that he gave you that report and that you either ignored it or dismissed it without taking legal advice. Is that correct?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Craig Hoy
You have mentioned financial risk. There was an element of political risk in the decision, in that the contract was being awarded to a well-known businessman who was aligned to the Scottish National Party, the party of Government, and to the independence cause. What were your thoughts at the time about awarding such a high-profile contract to such a figure, who was clearly known to have connections to the party of government?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Craig Hoy
Good morning, Mr Mackay. Thank you for appearing before the committee.
In his report, the Auditor General identified a major issue in relation to insufficient documentary evidence, which has been a concern for the committee. Subsequent to the report’s publication, there was documentary evidence to suggest that you were responsible, and a release came out to suggest that you were responsible for taking the decision. We now know who took the decision, but we do not know why.
Do you think that there is still some documentary evidence out there that might give us further information as to why the decision was taken, first to announce Ferguson’s as the preferred bidder, and secondly, to award the contract despite the misgivings about a full builders refund guarantee?
