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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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Stuart McMillan
Good morning and welcome to the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee’s 13th meeting in session 6. I remind everyone who is present to switch their mobile phones to silent.
Agenda item 1 is a decision on whether to take item 8 in private. Is the committee content to take that item in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instruments Subject to Affirmative Procedure
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Stuart McMillan
Is the committee content with the instruments?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instruments Subject to Affirmative Procedure
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Stuart McMillan
Does the committee wish to welcome the fact that the relaid draft order addresses issues that were reported by the session 5 committee at its meeting on 12 January 2021 in respect of the draft Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Short-term Lets) Order 2021?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Made Affirmative Procedure Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Stuart McMillan
Thank you, Dr Fox.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018: Instrument Procedure and Category
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Stuart McMillan
Members will note that the instrument removes the requirement for products of animal origin and animal by-products to be accompanied by health certificates. That differs from previous instruments, which postponed the implementation of border control measures. As the approach appears to constitute a policy choice, does the committee agree that the categorisation should be of medium, rather than low, significance?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Made Affirmative Procedure Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Stuart McMillan
Before we finish the evidence session, I have a final question for our two witnesses. Would it be useful to have a procedure that was in between the affirmative procedure, which is subject to the 40-day period, and the made affirmative procedure, given the current circumstances that we face and the Covid regulations that are coming through?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Made Affirmative Procedure Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Stuart McMillan
I mean something with different time limits. Could a new procedure be created that was beneficial and enabled the committee and the Parliament to do the scrutiny work that has been discussed this morning?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instruments Subject to Negative Procedure
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Stuart McMillan
An issue has been raised on the regulations, which amend the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc (Scotland) Act 2000 (Register of Interests) Regulations 2003 in light of changes made to the code of conduct for councillors and the model code of conduct for members of devolved public bodies.
The Ethical Standards in Public Life etc (Scotland) Act 2000 (Register of Interests) Amendment Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/397) were laid before the Parliament on 8 November 2021 and were considered by the committee at its meeting on 23 November. The committee resolved to report those regulations on reporting ground (i), due to a failure in the regulations to make provision for all registrable interests, as set out in the revised model code, contrary to the policy intention. Those regulations would have come into force on 8 December.
The regulations now before us were laid on 25 November 2021 and came into force on 7 December 2021 to rectify the errors in SSI 2021/397 and to make further provision. The regulations are in breach of section 28(2) of the Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, which requires that an instrument subject to the negative procedure be laid
“at least 28 days before the instrument comes into force”,
not counting recess periods of more than four days. Does the committee agree to report the instrument on reporting ground (j) for failure to lay it in accordance with laying requirements under the Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Made Affirmative Procedure Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Stuart McMillan
Thank you, Dr Fox.
It would be useful to make anyone who is watching these proceedings aware of the figures. Sixty-three made affirmative instruments were laid under the Public Health etc (Scotland) Act 2008, while 61 were laid under the Coronavirus Act 2020. In total, the procedure was used 132 times in Scotland between 20 March 2020 and 2 December 2021.
I think that we would all agree that it is difficult to do a direct comparison of uses of the procedure. Every instrument in the Scottish Parliament goes through the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, whereas there is not a comparable arrangement at Westminster. I want to make anyone who is watching aware of that, because it is an important point to recognise.
Dr Fox, notwithstanding the numbers that you outlined, and recognising that your focus is on Westminster and not so much on the Scottish Parliament, do you have any thoughts on the nature of the instruments for which the made affirmative procedure has been used? With regard to the increase in the number of such instruments relating to public health—you indicated that, for a period, 17 per cent of instruments at Westminster were made affirmative instruments—do you think that the use of the procedure, from the point of view of the policy areas that such instruments have been used for, is appropriate and correct, or is it potentially overbearing?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Made Affirmative Procedure Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Stuart McMillan
Thank you. Will you give us your thoughts on urgency, which the committee will, clearly, look at in more depth? It is clear that, pre-pandemic, there were very few made affirmative instruments but, obviously, the situation has been totally different since the pandemic began.
