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
I have a final question. The current tripartite arrangement was established to comply with European Union law. Now that the United Kingdom has left the EU, can you set out whether the Scottish Government is free to redesign the delivery framework, or are you looking to maintain alignment with EU competition laws? There is also the potential that the original decision was a judgment call, and perhaps you can revisit how much alignment with the EU you would need to maintain. Basically, how much freedom do you have to take decisions that you want to take, or do you have one eye on making sure that we are not subject to any future—
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
Thank you. That was a bit of a diversion, but I thought that I would ask about it.
Do any of you want to let us know anything else about skills, such as what you would ask for or what you need? This is your chance.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
We talked earlier about the corporates being able to help to develop the SME base in respect of business opportunities and training. Will that be a shared responsibility? Will corporates such as you and others that you work with do that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
Good morning, and thank you for joining us. You have talked about labour shortages, so I will leave that to one side. I want to focus on skills development, in particular. I will ask the business organisations first.
We need to time the development of skills in the supply chain to meet what we know future needs will be. How do we develop new skills now, even though they will not be deployed now but will need to be deployed in the future? The conundrum is that, if we do not do that now but wait five years, the skills that we will need will not be available, and the supply chain is such that other countries and manufacturers elsewhere will benefit from our domestic capability and potential.
I will come first to Hisashi Kuboyama, then to Liz McAreavey. What is your perspective on how we can bridge the skills gap and ensure that we are building our skills base? What does that mean for SMEs?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
There will be a skills gap in five years, but graduates coming out now need jobs. They cannot hang around for five years.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
I will ask something completely different, if that is okay. You talked about the importance of the Acorn project. Parliament’s Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee did an inquiry last year that was very supportive of that on a cross-party basis. The development of hydrogen will be interesting. We do not necessarily see it being within the heat network, and we know that the UK’s decision on hydrogen is not due to be made until 2026. Do you see an opportunity for the area—people and housing in Grangemouth—to use hydrogen as a heat source as part of that community’s just transition? What does the community get? Is that within scope?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
We have heard examples from Edinburgh and Leith, but we are focusing on Grangemouth. Is the model that you have just talked about in existence or in development in Grangemouth, or does that need to be pushed?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
You have all spoken about schools and colleges, which cover young people. However, obviously, there is an existing workforce in the area. You talked about your employees sometimes having 15-plus years of experience. What engagement have you had, or will you have, with the existing workforce to identify whether skills in it can be adapted or reskilling is required? Is the work with the trade unions a joint arrangement to develop the sight line for those employees as individuals?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Ferry Services Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
I want to take us back to the weather and to Robbie Drummond. We have received a submission from the Mull and Iona Ferry Committee—you will not have seen that, but we are happy for you to respond to it once you have had a chance to see it. The Mull and Iona Ferry Committee has looked at freedom of information data from CalMac over the past 22 years and Met Office analysis of wind recordings, and it has said that the number of weather-related cancellations in comparable winters has increased by around a factor of 10.
Bearing in mind that safety and the decisions of masters are absolutely paramount, the Mull and Iona Ferry Committee’s reflection on the engagement with CalMac is that there are issues relating to the tracking of the weather experience and whether there has been a significant decline, the potential of external factors, tighter regulation, a more litigious environment, and a fear of prosecution of masters. There might be other forces that are perhaps leading to a more restrictive view of whether it is safe to travel.
11:45We also heard that on our visits. Anecdotally, people reflected that, in the past, masters would perhaps have sailed, whereas now they do not.
Feel free to come back to us once you have seen the submission, but do you have any reflections on changing behaviour and who is looking strategically at whether that is really happening? Do you acknowledge that that is happening? Where does that put masters’ decision making? Are they taking more conservative approaches because of the changing nature of potential issues around legal challenges, for example?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Ferry Services Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Fiona Hyslop
Is there any reflection from NorthLink Ferries? You said that weather is less of a disruption for you. Do you have any comments about masters’ judgments and changes in the law over the past 10 to 20 years?
