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 1731 contributions
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Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Alasdair Allan
Before I ask about issues relating to the funding of island areas in the budget, I will ask another question relating to islands and, in some ways, to crofting. You are very aware of the housing problems on the islands. We have spoken before about your not being the housing minister, but where, in the Government’s thinking, does the rural housing crisis come into your work?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Impact of European Union Exit
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Alasdair Allan
In her questions, Rachael Hamilton attributed support for the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 to the NFUS. There is certainly support for access to markets in England, but more than one committee of the Parliament has had representations from the NFUS about its concerns about the 2020 act. For instance, Andrew McCornick, the former president of the NFUS, said:
“the UK Internal Market proposals put forward limit the devolved administrations’ ability to act if any standards were lowered and give the UK Government a final say in areas of devolved policy”.
The NFUS said that publicly, and we have had representations from the industry to more than one committee. Has the Government had representations about some of those concerns, too?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Alasdair Allan
In relation to what comes under the budget headings, you have talked about backloading some of the things in the islands programme. Can you explain the reasons for that and what that means?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Alasdair Allan
I welcome what you have said and the recognition of the backlog in many of the ways in which crofters interact with the commission. Part of the commission’s function is to tackle derelict or all-but-abandoned crofts and, one might hope that in the future it will deal with the growing problem of speculation in crofts. Is the review of the staff and the budget an opportunity for the commission to do things differently?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Alasdair Allan
You mentioned the Scottish Government’s commitment to maintaining payments and some difficulties, shall we say, about the UK’s commitment at the other end of the balance sheet. I am sure that the committee will want to put this question to a UK minister at some stage, but has the UK Government explained its position on that to the Scottish Government? What have you said to the UK Government? What communication channels have you tried to set up with it to explain the Scottish Government’s position?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Impact of European Union Exit
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Alasdair Allan
You have mentioned the food and drink sector, but I would be interested to know what contact you have had from other sectors. The obvious ones are fishing and fish processing, but there is also the care sector and tourism. What approaches has the Government had from people in business about what they feel the impacts are?
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Alasdair Allan
To ask the Scottish Government what work is being undertaken to change electricity levy schemes to tackle fuel poverty in rural and island areas of the north of Scotland. (S6O-00606)
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Alasdair Allan
I thank the cabinet secretary for that reply. The north of Scotland region is rich in green energy but has twice the average Scottish level of extreme fuel poverty. As the cabinet secretary has recognised, part of that problem is the unfair and archaic transmission charges, which are set by the UK Government and, in effect, charge consumers by how far they are from the south. In Scotland, there is a significantly higher distribution cost levy per unit for customers in the north than in the south. Will the Scottish Government continue to lobby to get rid of that once and for all?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Dumfries City Status
Meeting date: 22 December 2021
Alasdair Allan
Will the member take an intervention?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Dumfries City Status
Meeting date: 22 December 2021
Alasdair Allan
I am compelled to ask the member this question after that last intervention. Has she encountered any other opposition within Dumfries to the idea of city status, or is it just coming from over there, on the Conservative benches?
