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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Meeting of the Parliament
Challenge Poverty Week 2023
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Liam McArthur
I encourage members who are leaving the chamber to do so as quickly and quietly as possible. The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-10526, in the name of Collette Stevenson, on challenge poverty week 2023. The debate will be concluded without any question being put. I invite members who wish to participate to press their request-to-speak buttons now or as soon as possible, and I invite Collette Stevenson to open the debate by speaking for around seven minutes.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament recognises Challenge Poverty Week 2023, which is coordinated by the Poverty Alliance, Scotland’s anti-poverty network, and which runs from 2 to 8 October; notes that activities, events and actions will take place across Scotland to highlight the realities of, and solutions to, poverty, as well as increasing public support for tackling poverty; understands that the week emphasises the importance of a number of key policy asks, to help to unlock people from the grip of poverty, including the role of communities, access to food and adequate incomes; believes that over one million people in Scotland, including 250,000 children, are living in the grip of poverty and that the ongoing cost of living crisis continues to pull even more into hardship; notes the view that governments, politicians, civil society and communities all have a role to play in solving poverty; understands that particular groups of people, including low-paid women, lone parents, disabled people and people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are disproportionately experiencing poverty; notes the view that poverty in Scotland can be solved by utilising all levers to boost incomes and reduce the impact of the cost of living crisis; further notes the view that people in Scotland support action to end poverty and believe in compassion and social justice; celebrates the work undertaken by organisations and communities across Scotland to stem what it sees as the rising tide of poverty, and notes the view that people across Scotland, including all MSPs, should attend and support events and activities in their areas to mark Challenge Poverty Week 2023.
18:24Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Liam McArthur
With the First Minister’s unilateral decision to freeze council tax, the Verity house agreement has gone the way of the historic concordat. Fergus Ewing has had his wishes granted through the shredding of the Bute house agreement, civil servants have been circumvented and Cabinet Government has been abandoned. Does the cabinet secretary believe that the First Minister was right to channel his inner Liz Truss over council tax?
Meeting of the Parliament
Health and Social Care (Winter Planning and Resilience)
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Liam McArthur
Four members still wish to ask a question, and we have four minutes to go. I intend to get everybody in, but they will need to be brief.
Meeting of the Parliament
Health and Social Care (Winter Planning and Resilience)
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Liam McArthur
Thank you, cabinet secretary.
Members will not be surprised to hear that we are now, for obvious reasons, somewhat tight for time for the rest of the afternoon. I intend to allow up to 20 minutes for questions, after which we will need to move on to the next item of business.
Meeting of the Parliament
Health and Social Care (Winter Planning and Resilience)
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Liam McArthur
Thank you, Ms Grahame. Cabinet secretary—
Meeting of the Parliament
Transvaginal Mesh
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Liam McArthur
The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-10915, in the name of Jenni Minto, on transvaginal mesh. I invite members who wish to participate in the debate to press their request-to-speak button now or as soon as possible.
15:49Meeting of the Parliament
Health and Social Care (Winter Planning and Resilience)
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Liam McArthur
Thank you, cabinet secretary. I am going to need a bit more brevity with the responses.
Meeting of the Parliament
Health and Social Care (Winter Planning and Resilience)
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Liam McArthur
Cabinet secretary, we need briefer responses as well as briefer questions.
Meeting of the Parliament
Transvaginal Mesh
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Liam McArthur
We move to closing speeches.
17:23Meeting of the Parliament
Health and Social Care (Winter Planning and Resilience)
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Liam McArthur
The next item of business is a statement by Michael Matheson on planning for winter 2023-24 and on-going resilience across health and social care. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of his statement, so there should be no interruptions or interventions.
15:17