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 1576 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
Caledonian MacBrayne Services (Resilience Fund)
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Alasdair Allan
We all know about, and we have quite rightly rehearsed today, the problems facing the CalMac network. There are not enough ships. The ships that are there are ageing. They are breaking down more often, and those repairs are taking longer. CalMac, which was once very much considered part of the fabric of life in the islands, risks increasingly being seen by islanders as remote and bureaucratic.
Continuing disruption has hit many businesses in my constituency hard, nowhere more so—I should say—than in Uist. Lochboisdale is not typically a place where you will see protests and mass demonstrations. As others have pointed out, the fact that one third of the island’s resident population came out to demonstrate against the recent complete withdrawal of the ferry service says much about the pain that is being felt there.
South Uist has, in fact, regularly suffered more from service disruption than anywhere else on the Clyde and Hebrides network. Over the course of a year, there were 225 cancelled sailings versus 479 that operated. That is an astonishingly high cancellation rate, and it is easily higher than the rate anywhere else on the network. Winter was particularly bad, with only a quarter of scheduled sailings operating between November and March.
Lifeline services should, in the first instance, serve island communities. I carefully preface my next remark by acknowledging that every island in Scotland needs a good ferry service. However, while other islands with smaller populations get two or even four-vessel services, the whole string of islands from Eriskay to Berneray has to share half of a single ferry between North Uist and Skye at the moment.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Alasdair Allan
Despite previously benefiting enormously from European Union funding, does the minister share my view that the Western Isles received nothing in either round of the levelling up fund? Does he also share my views that the apparent determination of the UK Government to ignore the devolution settlement is unhelpful and that structural funds should be devolved to the Scottish Government as a priority?
Meeting of the Parliament
Caledonian MacBrayne Services (Resilience Fund)
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Alasdair Allan
I must make progress now.
Hauliers have frequently faced delay and rerouting over hundreds of miles. Time-critical shellfish exports have sometimes not been able to reach European markets timeously.
Even before the latest disruption in Uist, businesses had approached me to say that they were not convinced that they could survive this year as a result of these issues. Of course, the complete withdrawal of the ferry service from South Uist makes the situation even more critical.
The Scottish Government has rightly made ensuring a reliable ferry service a priority. We all want to see the new Islay class vessels, as well as those at Port Glasgow, come into service, but—as I hope that I have illustrated—there are businesses across Uist that cannot afford to wait. What is happening in Uist is in a different league from what is happening in many other places.
The Government’s amendment clearly recognises—
Meeting of the Parliament
Caledonian MacBrayne Services (Resilience Fund)
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Alasdair Allan
I conclude there, and I recognise that the Government amendment goes some way—in fact, a great deal of the way—towards acknowledging those problems, which are very real.
16:31Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Alasdair Allan
I appreciate that.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Alasdair Allan
I have been in it. I have seen “Star Wars” in it in Barra.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Alasdair Allan
Building on what Mark Ruskell asked about, I want to ask about responsiveness to local communities’ needs, and specifically the fact that not all culture takes place in a theatre or traditional cultural venue. I am thinking about traditional culture, but that could apply to all sorts of local culture. How do you recognise that fact in how you approach things nationally?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Alasdair Allan
I agree with your point that some of the funding for the big cities reflects the fact that people come into big cities to access stuff. However, when you measure success rates, do you also take account of the fact that visiting some parts of the country—I represent the Western Isles—would involve an overnight stay and that those places are therefore out of some people’s reach? That is not a case against the centres of excellence in the Burrell collection or the national museum of Scotland, but are we measuring success in terms of enabling people to access national assets that are in places that are so far away that an overnight stay is involved?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Alasdair Allan
Thank you.
Meeting of the Parliament
New Vessels for the Clyde and the Hebrides (Report)
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Alasdair Allan
It is as well to start—as we have all done in several previous ferries debates—with a frank acknowledgement of the situation that we face. Many of us were in the chamber in October 2015 to hear the contract award announcement for vessels 801 and 802. I doubt whether any of us, even in our uneasiest dreams, could have imagined that we might be here nearly eight years later, discussing the circumstances of those two vessels’ on-going construction.
