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 1505 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 26 September 2024
Alasdair Allan
I hear Ben Macpherson’s concerns, and I think that I may know the area of Edinburgh that he is referring to. As he has mentioned, the Parliament lacks the legislative power to change energy policy in that respect. It is disappointing that the UK Government has not taken quicker action to protect consumers who are reliant on heat networks for heating and hot water. I will raise the issue as a matter of urgency with my counterparts in the UK Government, and will certainly correspond with the member on some of the issues that he raises.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 26 September 2024
Alasdair Allan
I thank the member for the points that she makes. She rightly says that not all costs that are associated with our transition to a clean future can ever be met entirely by Government. However, I would add that the member and her party often come to the Parliament asking what more Scotland, and our Government, can do to meet our ambitious targets on decarbonising the country. A total of 20 per cent of the carbon emissions from Scotland come from houses, so I hope that she will not oppose every measure that is brought to Parliament to try to address the problem.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 26 September 2024
Alasdair Allan
Yes—I confirm that it will. The member mentions some themes that came through in the report, which were that the plan must earn the trust of the workers, that it must be the first in a series of just transition plans for different parts of the Scottish economy and that a new intergenerational social contract is needed to ensure that Grangemouth feels the benefit, which must extend to the whole region.
Another point that I wish to make—I appreciate that the member realises this—is that that is all in addition to the more immediate interventions that are taking place in and around Grangemouth, in consultation with the UK Government.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 26 September 2024
Alasdair Allan
I thank the member for his contribution and his helpful point about Mossmorran. The Government is very much cognisant of the role of Mossmorran and its need to have its own just transition plan and its own specific engagement. That engagement is already under way.
Meeting of the Parliament
Creating a Modern, Diverse and Dynamic Scotland
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Alasdair Allan
Can the member clarify whether, any time soon when in Government, the Lib Dems are planning to rejoin the European Union?
Meeting of the Parliament
Creating a Modern, Diverse and Dynamic Scotland
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Alasdair Allan
Will the member give way?
Meeting of the Parliament
Creating a Modern, Diverse and Dynamic Scotland
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Alasdair Allan
Will the member take an intervention?
Meeting of the Parliament
Creating a Modern, Diverse and Dynamic Scotland
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Alasdair Allan
I hear what the member is saying and I recognise and respect the fact that we come from different political stances on this, but is she saying that there is never going to be any legal way for people in Scotland to express their views again on the matter of independence, given that elections and opinion polls tend to suggest that half the country wants that?
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 12 September 2024
Alasdair Allan
Sarah Boyack is right to point to the importance of Grangemouth and the concern, which the Government shares, about Petroineos’s announcement of its plans to cease refining in Grangemouth and the impact that that will have on many workers and their families.
I have made clear to the business community in Scotland, including that sector, the importance of a just transition for Grangemouth. The workforce there is highly skilled and perfectly equipped to support the deployment of new technologies at Grangemouth in the coming years. The first meeting that the First Minister had with the Prime Minister focused in part on the criticality of securing just such a just transition for Grangemouth.
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 12 September 2024
Alasdair Allan
As I have indicated, there is a very significant cut to our capital budgets in the coming years. If the member has any influence with the UK Government, he will perhaps indicate those facts to it and suggest that it might be better if things got a little better in the future rather than worse, particularly when Scotland is in a position of seeking to meet public sector pay deals and to provide public services in the teeth of austerity from the UK Government.
