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 1524 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Ferry Services Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
Okay.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Ferry Services Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
I want to look ahead to what will come next, after project Neptune. There is a variety of strategic thinking on ferry operations, procurement and asset ownership at various points and in different arrangements, and there are different options on the table. How do you know that Transport Scotland is doing its job?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Ferry Services Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
The witnesses will know that we heard from representatives from Norway. Although Norway is different from Scotland—it is more coastal and we have the islands experience—I was struck by their forward-thinking approach. Norway is operating with new technology; it is about to deploy a hydrogen vessel and has automatic berthing in some ports. I was also struck by its iterative procurement process that is close to market and incentivises innovation.
I understand and appreciate that CMAL has gone through challenging times in the past, and that to switch to a different approach and culture requires resources, support from Government and long-term strategic thinking about how innovative we want our sector to be. What are your reflections on what that would take? We can make recommendations in our report to the Government as to the type of ferry scenario that we want. It is about strategic thinking, a joined-up approach and trying to reduce the use of roads and cars rather than building vessels to take more cars—for example, why are we not thinking about end-to-end traffic? Is there something about the Norwegian model that attracts you and that you think Scotland could aspire to, and what would it take for us to achieve it?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
Just very briefly, on that point, my constituency is in the West Lothian area. It has had poor take up, which might reflect the fact that it is a semi-rural area. You can get from east to west on a train, but trying to get from north to south, taking timing into account, is different. My young constituents say: “What is the point of having the bus pass when I can’t use it?”. That kind of forecasting will have to take place, so my appeal is that you do not look only at rural areas, because there are some very central semi-rural areas—I expect that Lanarkshire might be similar—that should be specifically examined.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Ferry Services Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
Can I explore what you mean by independence? Independence from whom to deliver what?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Ferry Services Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
It would be very helpful if you could update the committee on that—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Ferry Services Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
Just to develop your point about the strategic focus, I know that Transport Scotland is also in the mix, which has resulted in the triangle that, as people will know from the evidence that we have taken, can be seen as being overcomplicated. If CMAL and CalMac were to come together, would that put greater onus on Transport Scotland to have the expertise with regard to accountability? How does that relationship work? Would Transport Scotland’s remoteness potentially be a problem if there were to be a merger?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Ferry Services Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
Finally, how is CMAL preparing for the end of the current Clyde and Hebrides ferry service contract in October 2024, which is only 18 months away?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Ferry Services Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
Clearly, greater strategic analysis is needed. At the end of the day, the masters will decide whether a vessel sails, but this will be the reality for the future. Does there need to be more strategic thinking across all our ports? We should bear in mind that not all of them are CMAL assets; local councils own ports and there are other ownership models. As a country, we are so dependent on our islands and coastal communities, so rising sea levels and worse weather will have a major impact. Should the Government look more closely at how we future proof that whole asset base? Is there a danger that if CMAL, understandably, just looks after its own asset base, our thinking might not be as joined up as it might be when procuring vessels that need to operate at different harbours?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Ferry Services Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
Are you open to a different arrangement whereby some of the strategic thinking might lie within the Government, particularly as a lot of it is about wider connectivity and net zero issues? Some of Transport Scotland’s strategic work could well overlap with some of CMAL’s current functions. Are you open to thinking about different approaches to ensure that we have the required governance and accountability, potentially informed by what the committee recommends?
