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
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
I note that Arina Russell was nodding quite a bit to some of that. Do you want to contribute to this conversation, Ms Russell?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
It is a fascinating thing to watch. I have to be honest and say that I walk down the mountains, not up; I tend to go up in a chairlift or a cable car, which allows me to look down on all the people who are doing the biking. A lot of reinforced body armour is associated with it now, because they expect to be thrown off their bikes at various points. However, as you said, it is an Olympic sport; it is one that is very much growing and for which there will be increasing demand. That was an interesting observation about its having an operating authority, which we might want to pursue.
Paul Sweeney, you wanted to come back in—just briefly, because we are coming to the end of our time.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Welcome back. We resume our consideration of PE1812, on Scotland’s remaining ancient, native and semi-native woodlands and woodland floors. We heard just a few moments ago from the petitioners, Audrey Baird and Fiona Baker, and I am now delighted to welcome to a round-table discussion a number of people who will be able to help us with our deliberations.
We have been joined in the committee room by Andrew Weatherall from the RSPB, Arina Russell from the Woodland Trust and Doug Howieson from Scottish Forestry. Joining us virtually are Claudia Rowse from NatureScot and Andy Leitch from Confor. I hope that everybody can see them on the screens, although if you are at the far end of the table, it is quite a reach. I welcome you all.
We hoped that we would be joined by our colleague Jackie Baillie, but she is in another committee meeting and is unable to get here at this point.
This is the first round-table discussion that the committee has held in the current session. It has all been virtual up to now, so it is great to be able to have witnesses with us in person.
Rather than going round everyone on every question, I ask witnesses who want to contribute on a particular issue to catch my eye or the eye of one of the clerks, who will let me know that you would like to comment. Our two witnesses who are participating virtually should put the letter R in the chat box. The clerks will look out for that and they will intimate to me you would like to join the discussion. The microphones will be operated by our broadcasting team, so there is no need for those of you who are in the room to press any buttons or get preoccupied about that.
We heard from the petitioners about the value of ancient native woodlands and whether adequate protections are in place given the big expansion of commercial forestry and the potential that ancient woodlands have for recreational use. What is your reaction, in general terms, to the essence of the petition? What are your views on the biodiversity of ancient, native and semi-native woodlands? What is their value to Scotland? Why are the woodland floors that support them also important? By way of introduction, I will bring in each of you in turn to get your comments on those questions.
11:00Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Our second virtual participant is Andy Leitch. Welcome to the round table, Andy. I ask you to make a few introductory comments.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
First, we will go to Andy Leitch, then to Claudia Rowse, then to Andrew Weatherall, after which we will come back to Paul.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
An hour has evaporated pretty quickly. Before I bring the session to an end, I ask each witness to give any reflections on the conversation that we have had or to make a point that they think we have missed or not focused on enough.
Andy Leitch, we have not heard from you for a while, so I will come to you first. You have been able to hear much of what has been said. Would you like to leave us with a final thought?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Out of interest, where is the nearest native ancient woodland to where we are just now?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Maybe we will go. I am all for an outdoor outing. It might be quite useful to us.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you all very much. It has been incredibly helpful. Given that we are coming into the summer, I like the idea of sensing the thing for ourselves—because, potentially, we all think that we know about it; certainly, we all have an investment in it; and, from everything we have heard, there are some serious issues underpinning the petition that the committee will want to reflect on in the light of all the evidence that you have given us this morning and that we heard from the petitioners.
I thank you all—those who have come here and those who have joined us virtually. That has been very helpful. I briefly suspend the meeting.
11:54 Meeting suspended.11:57 On resuming—
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
It would be useful to draw the attention of the Scottish Government to the evidence that we have received about that reduction. I agree with what you say. Given that there are local taxi licensing boards, I would have expected that we would get a fuller response.
We have quite a full schedule ahead but, as this will be an on-going issue, do we agree to seek to have an evidence session around the issues that are raised by the petition?
Members indicated agreement.
