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 1720 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Alasdair Allan
You have touched on some of this already, but what would be the implications for Marine Scotland and other bodies of enforcing the solution that you would like to see?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Alasdair Allan
You have indicated why you feel that the measures are needed. In the longer term, would there be some benefit for the creeling industry if the measures that you propose are implemented?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Alasdair Allan
Likewise, I think that the issues in the petition were given a good hearing today and that we can give a more comprehensive hearing to the wider issues in the committee’s later work. That makes the case for closing the petition.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Alasdair Allan
Some of the argument is about introducing a variation on the historical limit. As you will know better than I do, that limit was brought in to keep steam-powered vessels out of coastal areas. From what you are saying today, it seems that the proposed variation is about trying to find a spatial management system that works. Spatial management comes up often in this committee. It seems to be a bit of a holy grail. How would a variation on the historical system work, and what would the spatial management system look like?
Meeting of the Parliament
Levelling Up Fund
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Alasdair Allan
The minister said something that is worth mentioning again: only one of many bids from the Highlands and Islands was successful in this round of UK Government levelling up funding. My constituency previously—and rightly—benefited enormously from EU structural funding. Does the minister believe that the UK Government’s watered-down replacement for EU funding is equitable and fit for purpose, or does he believe that it again demonstrates how far removed the UK Government is from the needs of rural and island communities?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Crisis in Ukraine
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Alasdair Allan
Thank you. As you said, convener, others have covered that area, so I will come in on other subjects later on.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Crisis in Ukraine
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Alasdair Allan
My question is also about housing. Mr Sharp mentioned the housing crisis, and there are certainly pressures there. I realise that planning decisions do not immediately deal with the here and now, but I am keen to hear from any of you how addressing housing problems for displaced people fits into your planning policy or approach.
You will be aware that swathes of suburban Scotland have large private developers building houses that are beyond the reach of anyone who lives within 50 miles of them or has not sold a house in a large city somewhere else. What is being done to factor the needs of displaced people into planning decisions that are made around such issues?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Crisis in Ukraine
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Alasdair Allan
Thank you, convener—it has mostly been covered, but I have one question for the witnesses.
You mentioned the background and home checks that local authorities are doing. How varied is the situation in different local authority areas across the country? Anecdotally, we have heard that some local authorities, possibly for good reasons, have taken some time to do that work. I appreciate that they are not doing it on their own, as they have to co-operate with other agencies.
Meeting of the Parliament
Electoral Reform
Meeting date: 1 February 2023
Alasdair Allan
Will the member take an intervention?
Meeting of the Parliament
Electoral Reform
Meeting date: 1 February 2023
Alasdair Allan
I appreciate and agree with the points that Stephen Kerr has made about the importance of defending democracy and its being our birthright. However, can he understand—I ask this honestly—the reaction that there is likely to be from people who do not have a passport or a driving licence and who turn up at the next UK general election only to be told that they do not enjoy such a birthright?
