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 921 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Lorna Slater
I will respond to that point, convener. It is not standard practice to publish gateway reviews, although that has been done on occasion during this project. I committed to the committee that I would respond with the findings of the review, and I have shared some of them with you today. That includes that the review identified significant blockers, such as the lack of a decision on IMA exclusion and the lack of a ruling on trading standards on shelf-edge labelling. I have also outlined our on-going work in that area. As the convener will recognise, there has been substantial change in the past three weeks and I would like the report on the findings to the committee to be up to date with the current context. Therefore, we will publish the findings and the response and will share those with the committee before recess.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Lorna Slater
That is an area of significant concern. As far as I understand it—Euan Page can keep me right—common frameworks existed before Brexit but have become even more important as we deal with the complexities of the internal market act. If we no longer have that mechanism, and the UK Government can impose restrictions that are based on the 2020 act more or less on a whim and without proportionality, evidence or impact assessments, I do not know where that leaves us in relation to our being able to work together as nations.
Perhaps Euan Page can add some detail.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Lorna Slater
I will need to turn to Euan Page for the answer to that question.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Lorna Slater
As far as I know, I am not able to discuss that matter. Ailsa Heine can give more information on that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Lorna Slater
That is correct.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Lorna Slater
CSL is a private, not-for-profit company, which is industry-led and is designed to be funded by industry, so it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to fund the company. However, as we intend to go ahead with the scheme in 2025 and as the UK Government has said that it intends to go ahead with the scheme in 2025, there will be a need for a scheme administrator and a need to develop the expertise that we have already developed. It is now for producers in the UK at large to decide whether the smoothest path towards the implementation of a UK-wide DRS would be for them to keep CSL in continuity, which I would encourage them to do. Keeping CSL in continuity would allow that expertise to be brought to the delivery of a UK-wide scheme. It is up to the producers that currently fund CSL to decide on that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Lorna Slater
There are two issues with counting on kerbside collection alone to meet the recycling targets. One is that kerbside collections are funded by local authorities, so they are funded by public money. The whole point of moving to the polluter pays principle is that the businesses that profit from damaging the environment, such as by the creation of litter, pay for preventing that damage. Across Government, we are moving to a polluter pays principle. The member will be familiar with the extended producer responsibility for packaging regulations that are being worked through on a common UK level towards making that polluter pays principle reality.
The other issue with kerbside recycling is practical. Kerbside recycling can only drive recycling levels up to about 64 per cent. With deposit return, we are looking at more like 90 per cent. Kerbside recycling for glass is what industry experts call “lossy”. Items need to be handled many times—put in to boxes, tipped into the back of trucks and otherwise handled—which means that up to 40 per cent of the glass is actually lost. Equally, because the glass can be contaminated, it is considered lower quality, so kerbside recycled glass generally is not recycled into bottles but goes into lower-quality stuff, such as aggregate for roads. The whole point of a deposit return scheme is that it increases not only the amount of recyclate, but the quality of that recyclate so that it can be fully circular and recycled back into glass bottles. That is the whole point of a deposit return scheme.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Lorna Slater
Arrangements between the Scottish National Investment Bank and CSL are a private matter between those two organisations and I am not involved in that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Lorna Slater
I am interested in the convener’s saying that there is a “chance” that CSL might be needed in 2025. The UK Government has committed to launching a scheme in 2025 and we very much support that stated ambition. The smoothest path to a successful UK launch is to keep the expertise that CSL has created. It is for industry to decide whether its smoothest path is to keep CSL going until the 2025 launch or to take another route.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Lorna Slater
All the schemes in the UK will require scheme administrator organisations and the UK Government will ask industry to put together what it refers to as a deposit management organisation. We call it a scheme administrator. The UK Government has said that its timeline for putting in place its DMO is 2024. One can imagine a scenario where CSL and its producers work together using their expertise and investment to apply to be the DMO for the whole of the UK. That is one route forward, but it is for industry to decide how it might want to take that forward.
