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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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Okay—we will keep the petition open on that basis.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you all very much. Your evidence has been very much appreciated. Is there any final point you would like to touch on that we have not addressed?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
The next of our continued petitions is PE1862, which was lodged by Rona MacKay, Angus Campbell and Naomi Bremner on behalf of the Uist economic task force and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce community representation on the boards of public organisations delivering lifeline services to island communities, in keeping with the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018. Dr Alasdair Allan has joined us before in our consideration of the petition, and I warmly welcome him back for this discussion.
When we considered the petition at our meeting on 22 February, we agreed to write to the Minister for Transport, recommending that the Scottish Government explore all available options for formalising the role of community representation on boards of public organisations, including Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd, David MacBrayne Ltd and Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd.
We received a response from the now-former transport minister, Kevin Stewart, who agreed that more islanders should be involved in decisions on lifeline services. Similar to the response from the previous minister, Jenny Gilruth, Mr Stewart provided information on the efforts to encourage applications from island representatives in recent CMAL and DML recruitment processes. The minister also highlighted HIAL’s location-neutral policy for head office roles, which enables staff undertaking head office functions to be based at any HIAL sites.
We have also received a further submission from the petitioners, which emphasises the unintended consequences that can result from not having islander knowledge on the boards of public bodies and includes a request to give oral evidence to the committee. That is one of the options open to members, although colleagues might think that, in inviting Dr Allan to address us, we have taken the issues in the petition as far as we can.
I invite Dr Allan to address us.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Our next continued petition is PE1992. I am delighted to say that we are joined by the petitioner, Laura Hansler—a very warm welcome to the committee, Laura.
The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to deliver on the commitment that it made in 2011, and address safety concerns on the A9 by publishing a revised timetable and detailed plan for dualling each section, completing the dualling work by 2025, and creating a memorial to those who have lost their lives in road traffic incidents on the A9.
As well as the petitioner, we are joined by Grahame Barn from the Civil Engineering Contractors Association Scotland. A warm welcome to Mr Barn as well.
We are also joined by a number of MSP colleagues, and others will be joining us later. First, we welcome Edward Mountain, who joins as a reporter on the petition for the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. Mr Mountain will be assisting us in our consideration of the petition, including during today’s evidence sessions. It is nice to have you with us.
We also welcome Murdo Fraser and Kate Forbes, who I understand may be following proceedings online at present but will join proceedings later. Mark Ruskell may also join us. We have apologies from Jamie Halcro Johnston, who had hoped to join us.
All members who join us will have an opportunity to contribute at the end of the second evidence session. We have also received a written submission from Rhoda Grant, who is unable to join us due to other committee business.
A positive galaxy of parliamentary investigative talent will be brought to bear as we pursue the inquiry. After we have heard from our two witnesses, we will suspend briefly then hear from Transport Scotland.
I understand that, in the first instance, the petitioner would like to make a short statement. I am very happy to invite her to do so.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
If Jackie Baillie does not mind, I will ask her for clarification. The petitioner feels that his figures came from a ministerial response received to one of your questions. Have you been able to understand or establish why there might be a discrepancy between the two sets of figures?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
It would be useful to write to the Scottish Government to seek an explanation for the discrepancy in the figures. We should also draw attention to the report that has suggested that there could be a link with Covid. We could refer back to the petitioner’s long-standing association with the issue, the fact that it is all about prevention and that circumstances have changed. In the light of all of that, it could be that it is necessary to do a little more than had previously been suggested. Are colleagues content with that?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
I think that, on the petition’s clinical objective, which was to rule out the use of mesh in all circumstances, we had previously taken the view that we had heard sufficient evidence not to support it in principle. Is that the point that you wish to make, Mr Torrance?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
I return to the fact that the use of imaging does not require a change in the law. There was no change of the law in England when the practice was changed; it was just changed. It did not require parliamentarians to change the law; it required direction and discussion.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
How?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you very much, Lord Advocate. The points that you have made have been raised in the written submissions that we have received, and they are very much appreciated and understood. In part, what has surprised the committee is that, in our investigation of practices elsewhere, we have seen the function that you have just identified evolve both to the satisfaction of the people in question and in a way that has proved to be equally effective. Those are the areas that we would like to explore this morning.
I will open the questioning. Everybody understands that, if there is any suggestion that the circumstances surrounding a death are suspicious, a completely different criminal procedure is undertaken, but where no such suspicious circumstances are anticipated, is there scope for greater involvement of the next of kin and their views with regard to instructing a post mortem?
