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 917 contributions
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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Made Affirmative Procedure Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Craig Hoy
I will backtrack a bit. Is there a contradiction or tension between the necessity for emergency legislation to be urgent and of significant importance, and the fact that it gets the least, or a limited, amount of scrutiny? One example, to which Ms Ross might have been alluding, is the recent Covid passport scheme regulations, which were before this committee. As a new member of the committee, I was concerned that, although the regulations might have been framed exactly as they should have been, the policy to which they gave effect was sadly deficient. The passport did not prove that the person who presented it was the person to whom the passport had been issued, so there was an element of possible impersonation. In addition, when we introduced lateral flow tests to the scheme, it did not involve proof that a person had had a negative test; they could simply declare themselves negative, whether or not they had had the test.
The question that I am getting at is this: how do we manage the tension between the debate that is held and what seems to be an absence of scrutiny, both of the detail of the made affirmative instrument and, more importantly, of the policy to which it gives effect? How do we manage that tension between the debate and the lack of scrutiny when the legislation comes forward?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Made Affirmative Procedure Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Craig Hoy
Do you foresee that there would be more recourse to the courts as a result of continued application of the made affirmative procedure if we carried on in these circumstances? Would that be a route that industry would look to utilise if Parliament is not effectively scrutinising instruments or holding the Executive to account for those laws?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Made Affirmative Procedure Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Craig Hoy
Do you see merit or benefit in giving a committee such as this one or the group of parliamentarians who look at the regulations some authority also to probe the impact of the policy? Should that committee or group consider not only whether the regulation or instrument is well drafted, but ensure that it leads to good outcomes when it is applied in policy terms? Is there merit in bringing those two functions together within the same group?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Made Affirmative Procedure Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Craig Hoy
Dr Fox, I have a question about the differences between the ways in which Holyrood and Westminster look at such instruments. We were able only to ensure that the Covid passport regulations were soundly framed; we could not dig deeper into the policy, although some members of the committee thought that that was defective and deficient. How does that differ at Westminster? Would those who were looking at the instrument also look into the policy, or would they look only at how the legislation is framed?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Crofting Commission”
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Craig Hoy
In your opening statement, you said that Covid was the cause of the problem, in effect. However, I am getting the impression that there was a latent dysfunction that came to a head during Covid. Is that the right way of characterising the situation?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Crofting Commission”
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Craig Hoy
Looking forward, there will need to be an effort to rebuild trust. How are you going to do that, Mr Mathieson?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Crofting Commission”
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Craig Hoy
Is the board making the best use of the combination of appointed and elected members?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of NHS National Services Scotland”; and “Personal protective equipment”
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Craig Hoy
I want to drill down a little into the longer-term approach that is being taken to PPE supply and demand and perhaps capture how you are working with partners to develop capacity for on-going normal needs and for another pandemic, should that occur. This question might be for Mary Morgan. How has NHS NSS learned from the process that it has just been through? I am not necessarily asking about what you have learned. What processes have you gone through to capture learning and how are you ensuring that what you have learned is baked into future planning?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of NHS National Services Scotland”; and “Personal protective equipment”
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Craig Hoy
How do you balance the need for the stockpile with the costs? I assume that the products in question are perishable. Are you moving towards more of a just-in-time ordering system, or is having a stockpile important? I am bearing in mind the fact that the absence of such a stockpile was criticised at the beginning of the pandemic.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of NHS National Services Scotland”; and “Personal protective equipment”
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Craig Hoy
One of the phrases that has come up is “partnership working”. We have talked about the capacity building that has taken place in the domestic PPE industry. Is that sustainable? Does it pivot towards buying domestic product? Are health services internationally replicating that?
