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 2784 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Graham Simpson
Are you getting resistance from anyone?
Meeting of the Parliament
Housing
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Graham Simpson
I thank the Labour Party for bringing the debate to the chamber.
The starting point of the debate is whether one agrees that there is a housing emergency. It appears that the Scottish Government does not think that there is. That is despite overwhelming evidence and two councils having declared such an emergency in their own area, including in the capital, which was backed by SNP councillors. The Government’s amendment is petty, it shows an Administration that is out of touch with reality and we will not support it.
The evidence is compelling. The number of homeless applications increased by 9 per cent in 2022-23. Some 16,200 children have been assessed for, or are threatened with, homelessness. More than 6,000 families have been stuck in temporary accommodation for more than a year. In most council areas, the longest amount of time a child has been stuck in temporary accommodation exceeds a year.
Also, of course, the City of Edinburgh Council this month overwhelmingly declared a housing emergency in the capital; it was the second council to do so, after Argyll and Bute. The City of Edinburgh Council’s housing convener said:
“By declaring a housing emergency, we hope to draw widescale attention to an issue that demands urgent and united action. Every single person deserves a warm, safe, and affordable place to call home and we can address this, if we act now.”
Shelter Scotland director Alison Watson said of that declaration:
“Scotland is facing a housing emergency, which is at its most acute in the capital.”
That in itself should be enough for anyone to back the Labour motion. It is not enough for the Government, though.
Meeting of the Parliament
Housing
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Graham Simpson
We need an all-tenures solution to the housing crisis and the housing emergency, which the Government denies.
Shelter laid out the statistics in stark terms. A record 9,500 children are trapped in temporary accommodation; that is up 130 per cent since 2014. Forty-five children are becoming homeless every day. A household is becoming homeless every 16 minutes. There is a 10 per cent increase in households becoming homeless compared with last year.
Homelessness is at its worst when we have people sleeping rough on the streets, and that is on the rise again. It is at its worst when people are having to use night shelters. We must commit to ending both.
During the previous parliamentary session, I was on the Local Government and Communities Committee, which carried out an inquiry into homelessness. In October 2017, we visited Finland to look at that country’s housing first model. There, they had virtually eliminated rough sleeping. We recommended that the Scottish Government adopt the same approach. For a time, it looked as though the Government was on board, but now we seem to be slipping backwards.
No one should have to sleep rough and no one should have to use a night shelter, but they do. That is what makes it an emergency. It is disappointing that the Government does not see it that way. It has its head in the sand. We cannot begin to tackle a problem unless we first acknowledge the scale of it. We only have to listen to people such as the Edinburgh students I met this morning, who described the emergency for them in this city.
One of the big issues for many years has been our very low rates of house building. The Government amendment fails to recognise the need for more homes of all tenures or to acknowledge that the delivery of private housing is also pivotal to unlocking affordable housing delivery.
Meeting of the Parliament
Housing
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Graham Simpson
You did not take my intervention, Mr McLennan, so I will not take yours.
Meeting of the Parliament
Housing
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Graham Simpson
Will the minister take an intervention?
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Graham Simpson
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that the chief executive of Ferguson Marine is still entitled to a bonus despite the First Minister saying that he thought the practice should end. (S6T-01642)
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Graham Simpson
I am not sure that we found out anything from that.
It could possibly be argued at a stretch that Mr Tydeman should get some credit if he turns the yard into a viable business. However, we have learned this week that it has stopped work on a project for the Royal Navy because the Scottish Government—Neil Gray—refused the request for £25 million of investment for a new plating line, burning tables and better computer software. How much extra is the Government prepared to invest in the yard in order to turn it around?
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Graham Simpson
What that shows is that no one pays any attention to what the First Minister wants. Today, which is the sixth anniversary of the fake launch of the Glen Sannox, we should be clear that nobody at the yard should be getting a bonus.
In April, Humza Yousaf said:
“There should not be bonuses”—[Official Report, 27 April 2023; c 12.]
paid—but there were. Audit Scotland said:
“While Scottish Government approval was sought, FMPG did not have explicit approval prior to payment.”
Who sanctioned the latest bonuses? Why is David Tydeman in line for any more?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Graham Simpson
Oh, do they?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Graham Simpson
We could spend ages on that subject, but I will move on.
I want to chat to Derek Frew about the police’s involvement in mental health cases, because that has been a big concern of mine for a while now, having spoken to police in my patch. Both the convener and I represent Central Scotland, which includes Lanarkshire. When I speak to the police there—I think that, nationwide, other police say the same—they tell me that the amount of time that officers spend dealing with mental health cases can be very great. The figure that I was given locally was that 80 per cent of cases involve mental health issues, which I found astonishing.
I have also heard locally that there have been incidents where entire shifts of officers have had to sit with people in accident and emergency and so have been unable to deal with other cases. That seems to me to be a ludicrous situation and not a good use of resources. I ask you to comment on that initially, then we will move on.
