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 456 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Christine Grahame
Oh—I had forgotten, with that debate about “could” and “would”. Which one is it, please? [Interruption.] What page? Oh dear—maybe you should—
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Christine Grahame
I know that this is just under consideration, but you have mentioned a possible amendment at stage 2, whereas our briefing says that changes would be brought in by affirmative procedure. What process are we looking at? I appreciate that an instrument under the affirmative procedure means taking evidence and so on.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Christine Grahame
Section 13(7) of the bill—I should have known that. There we are. Rap over the knuckles. What is the definition in section 13(7)?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Christine Grahame
Can it be triggered by just a complaint? That would not be “proceedings”?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Christine Grahame
It has to be an official police investigation whereby people are advised that that is happening.
What about the official investigation—I am sorry, I am muddling myself now. I do not want to muddle you up. The official investigation must be by the police.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Christine Grahame
Even if it is for an island with one person?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Christine Grahame
If Cameron still cannot speak, convener, could we perhaps get a reply from him at some point?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Christine Grahame
The evidence has been very interesting. We talk about “the islands”, but my understanding is that there are 93 populated islands in Scotland. There is huge diversity—some populations might be in single figures, but there are also large populations. There are big differences in demographics, the distance from the mainland and so on. I am interested in the actions of steering groups on islands and in the input from the grass roots, given all that diversity.
Can you give me an example of an island with a very small population—I do not know if you will be able to name it; it might be wrong to do so—that put forward proposals that were not feasible? What was your response? I imagine that diplomacy would be involved here, too. Can you also give me an example of an island with a large population that came forward with proposals not just for sustaining its population but for increasing it—which, after all, is what this is really about? What came from that?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Christine Grahame
Is that as far down as you go? I think that there is an island with one person on it—I take it that they are not involved in that project, or are they? Is there a cut-off point where you say, “This is the population number below which we will not be engaging”?
10:15Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Christine Grahame
I am trying to understand this. I do not envy the task that you face, given such diversity, but the target, I imagine, is to sustain our islands and increase population as best we can, so it would be really handy if you could give me an example of an island whose population is, say, under threat and needs to be sustained and increased. What proposals came from that kind of community, and what was your response to it? Similarly, what proposals came from an island such as Skye, let us say, which does not need so much help and—I do not know—is buzzing along happily, and what was the response? That would give me an idea of how effective and realistic the grass roots are. I think that you said that one of the important things was building confidence in some of the islands that they could do something, but that would have to be tempered with realism and finance.
