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
Independence Referendum
Meeting date: 10 January 2023
John Swinney
Will the member take an intervention?
Meeting of the Parliament
Independence Referendum
Meeting date: 10 January 2023
John Swinney
Will the member give way?
Meeting of the Parliament
Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
John Swinney
You have to use the microphone.
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
John Swinney
Despite the spectacularly difficult current fiscal context, the Scottish Government has increased the resources available to local government next year by over £570 million. I have also invited council leaders to work with us and other partners to design our services around the needs and interests of the people and communities of Scotland. That is how we will deliver sustainable public services in partnership.
In addition to funding from the Scottish Government, local authorities enjoy a range of revenue-raising powers that are not available to other public services, including newly devolved powers over empty property rates relief.
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
John Swinney
No. The budget has been designed to create sustainable public services, with an increase of £570 million in the local government budget that was not expected. I have offered local authorities the opportunity to be partners in how we take forward the reform of the public sector. That was exactly what I did when we designed the Covid recovery strategy, which was agreed with local government. I look forward to building on that as we take forward the local government settlement, which I stress is £570 million higher than local authorities expected it to be.
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
John Swinney
The proper comparison of budgets that Parliament expects of me, as the acting finance minister, is between one budget and the next budget. From last year’s budget to this year’s budget, the local government finance settlement has increased by £570 million.
In the dialogue that I had before the budget statement, local government asked me for an increase of £1 billion in its budget allocation. I was clear with local government that £1 billion could not be delivered in the current fiscal context. Local government was expecting a flat cash settlement; it expected no more money next year in comparison with this year, because that is what it was encouraged to believe from the resource spending review, but in fact, I have delivered £570 million more. That is a welcome settlement for local government.
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
John Swinney
Frankly, I do not recognise the world that Liz Smith talks about. [Interruption.] Well, okay. Let me explain the dialogue with local authorities. I had several discussions with local government about the preparation for the budget, right up until the eve of the budget. I had discussions with all the political leaders in COSLA of all shades of political opinion. My colleagues who are involved in the work on the national care service have been involved in dialogue with local government, but I stress that local government has made it quite clear, because of its opposition to the national care service, that it does not particularly want to take forward dialogue with the Scottish Government on those questions.
When it comes to wider partnership working, I cite to Liz Smith the work that the Scottish Government did, in partnership with local government, that resulted in the Covid recovery strategy being agreed—it was a jointly agreed proposition. With the president of COSLA, I chair a delivery board to take forward such priorities. I wish that members of Parliament would reflect the reality of what is going on, not the invention of reality that we get from the Conservatives.
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
John Swinney
I am keen to take forward that approach, as is the social justice secretary, who is sitting beside me. We have embarked on such discussions with local authorities and we look forward to developing that work into the new fiscal framework. Local authorities have other tax-varying powers, such as those in relation to empty property relief. In due course in this parliamentary session, we will legislate on a visitor levy. Local authorities have at their disposal other measures, but they can rely on a £570 million increase in their budget that they were not expecting.
Meeting of the Parliament
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
John Swinney
I am beginning to get worried about her obsession with it. I confirmed that, in order to deal with the fuel poverty that exists in our country, the punishing inflation that people are wrestling with and the sky-high energy costs that have been fuelled by the mismanagement of the United Kingdom’s energy and economic policies by Liz Smith’s allies in the United Kingdom, I am allocating that resource to support those who are in fuel poverty. Surely the Tories could welcome that.
Meeting of the Parliament
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
John Swinney
Local government’s expectation from the resource spending review was of a flat cash settlement, which would have meant no more money next year compared with this year. I have just announced £550 million of additional expenditure. Is it impossible for anybody in here to welcome the fact that that is a departure from the resource spending review and that it addresses in a significant way the issues that local government has put to me?
I said in my statement that we would work with local government on addressing its concerns about ring fencing and the level of reporting in certain programmes, but Parliament also expects to hear from local government about the performance and delivery of certain issues that really matter to members of Parliament. Indeed, Mr Griffin and his colleagues ask these very questions. We will take forward that discussion with local government to create a partnership in which we can work together, and that approach will be greatly assisted by the fact that we have just allocated £550 million of new additional resources to local government.
