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 4938 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
Decision Time
Meeting date: 26 September 2023
John Swinney
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I had the same connection issue, and I would have voted no.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
John Swinney
I wonder whether the cabinet secretary believes that, in considering that question, Parliament has to be mindful of the fact that, when this Government came to office, our predecessors judged that it was acceptable for 63 per cent of schools to be in good or satisfactory condition. Despite austerity and all the public spending constraints, in excess of 90 per cent of Scottish schools are now in good or satisfactory condition. Does that not need to be recalled as we consider that important question?
Meeting of the Parliament
Online Child Abuse, Grooming and Exploitation
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
John Swinney
I will follow up on Mr Whitfield’s question, which was on a very important point that is worthy of consideration. Does the question not highlight another of the sensitivities in the discussions, which is about how we deal with educational content about relationships in the school setting? The issues cause considerable distress to individuals, but do the risk that Mr Whitfield highlights and the risk of abuse at a young age not reinforce the importance of having such dialogue as early as possible, in an age-appropriate fashion, with young people and children?
Meeting of the Parliament
Online Child Abuse, Grooming and Exploitation
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
John Swinney
Mr Whitfield opens up a significant issue, which Parliament has to consider, which is the sensitivity of some of the educational dialogue that has to take place. The world today is very different to the world of even five years ago. I suspect that the document to which Mr Whitfield referred is a few years older than that, and the world will have changed dramatically since. Engagement between families and schools about the material that children might well be exposed to is important, because children must be given the ability and capacity to handle really difficult and challenging circumstances and to know what is right and what is wrong, and that is changing in front of our eyes.
Meeting of the Parliament
Online Child Abuse, Grooming and Exploitation
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
John Swinney
The data that Audrey Nicoll marshals paints a troubling picture. Did the committee explore the sensitive and difficult issues in relation to the educational approaches that are required? Given that much of the technology is moving at such a pace, as are the activities, families might struggle to keep pace, so our education system faces additional burdens in trying to equip children and young people to deal with these difficulties.
Criminal Justice Committee
Deaths in Prison Custody
Meeting date: 20 September 2023
John Swinney
Does the improvement of those two processes provide you with sufficient confidence that, in theory, they would substantively address some of the early issues that families may have in the absence of a fatal accident inquiry being able to be undertaken in a timeous fashion?
Criminal Justice Committee
Deaths in Prison Custody
Meeting date: 20 September 2023
John Swinney
I listened to what you said in your responses to Pauline McNeill in particular about the perspective of families. Quite understandably, families want early information. A period of 24 months seems to me to be an awful long time to wait for information.
Criminal Justice Committee
Deaths in Prison Custody
Meeting date: 20 September 2023
John Swinney
Has that perspective been the subject of discussion at the custody action group, given that you have the Prison Service, the national health service and Healthcare Improvement Scotland, among others, around that table?
Criminal Justice Committee
Deaths in Prison Custody
Meeting date: 20 September 2023
John Swinney
But it still seems like an awful long time. What are the timescales for the scrutiny processes that are undertaken by the Scottish Prison Service and the national health service? Are those processes swifter than an FAI?
Criminal Justice Committee
Deaths in Prison Custody
Meeting date: 20 September 2023
John Swinney
As you properly said, the arrangements for a fatal accident inquiry are entirely matters for the Crown, as FAIs are carried out independently of the Scottish ministers. Notwithstanding the issues in relation to those arrangements, I am interested in whether a pragmatic adaptation of the processes that are undertaken by the SPS and the NHS could be carried out timeously so that families would get early, prompt, thorough and courteous engagement on the circumstances of the death of a loved one.
