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 2716 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Graham Simpson
To ask the Scottish Government what contingency plans it has in place should train drivers reject the latest pay offer, in light of the reported hundreds of cancellations at the weekend. (S6T-00745)
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Graham Simpson
There are no contingency plans, then.
Even if the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen recommends that members accept the offer tomorrow, it will take three weeks to ballot them. That is nearly a month of disruption to start with.
It was carnage on the railways at the weekend. On Sunday, 320 services were cancelled—and more might be cancelled this Sunday. We are in this mess because drivers do not want to work on their days off, and why should they? Mick Hogg of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers says that the issue could take five years to resolve. Is he right?
We could face the same disruption next year, but the Government has rejected a multiyear deal. Why do that? That is crazy. We need stability right now, not chaos. When will the minister deliver that?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Graham Simpson
ASLEF is a democratic union; it will put the matter to its members and that process will take three weeks. That is the fact of the matter.
We have had drivers sitting around twiddling their thumbs, itching to get in the cabs, even at the weekends. Tomorrow, Scotland plays Ukraine. The extra services that have been laid on at the 11th hour are welcome, but they are no use whatsoever for those coming from Dundee, Aberdeen or Perth. Other events are also coming up that deserve our attention, including the Edinburgh fringe and the 150th open at St Andrews in July. Furthermore, what about all the events that are coming up at the Glasgow Hydro? Billie Eilish will be playing there in a couple of weeks’ time. Lots of young fans, including young women, will be going to that and will want to get home afterwards. Does the minister not think that there is a basic safety issue here, particularly for young women? What will she do about that?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
General Question Time
Meeting date: 26 May 2022
Graham Simpson
Throughout the week, the minister seems to have forgotten that the buck stops with her. She refers to talks today between ScotRail and ASLEF. What has she instructed ScotRail to do, exactly?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 19 May 2022
Graham Simpson
When nat rail launched on April fool’s day, I speculated—
Members: Oh!
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 19 May 2022
Graham Simpson
They do not want to hear the truth, Presiding Officer.
What I did not realise was that wrecking the country’s train service would become established Government policy.
Nicola Sturgeon said that she wants to get everyone around the table. That should include her own transport minister, Jenny Gilruth, who has been posted missing in all this. That is why the unions are so exasperated—[Interruption.]
The First Minister should speak to the unions, as I have been doing, and she would hear the same thing—[Interruption.]
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Union Canal: 200th Anniversary
Meeting date: 19 May 2022
Graham Simpson
I whole-heartedly agree with Bob Doris about the Claypits. It is a wonderful area, but Sustrans and Glasgow City Council should also be commended for some of the new routes to the canal, which enable people in Bob Doris’s constituency to get to it more easily.
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 19 May 2022
Graham Simpson
To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government is doing to prevent future rail service cancellations due to industrial action by drivers. (S6F-01106)
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 19 May 2022
Graham Simpson
I know that this is uncomfortable for members, but we are running a railway that is completely reliant on people working on their days off. That is completely crazy.
The First Minister says that she wants the current timetable to be temporary, but I put this to her. It takes 18 months to train a driver, and we have 130 drivers to get through the system. Will she admit that it could take until at least 2024 before ScotRail is off the emergency timetable?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Union Canal: 200th Anniversary
Meeting date: 19 May 2022
Graham Simpson
I thank Fiona Hyslop for bringing the motion to the chamber. It is a very long motion, which covers a lot—but there is a lot to say.
I have not written out a speech, because I just want to say what I think about the canal. I might be the only person in the chamber—I could be wrong; we will put it to the test—who has actually cycled all the way along the canal from Edinburgh to Glasgow. If anyone else has, they can raise their hand—but it looks as though I am the only one who has done it.
Afterwards, I made the mistake of cycling back to my home in East Kilbride, which is uphill, and that rather ruined what had been a very fine day. I have done bits of the canal, as well. I really love the Union canal bit, but the Falkirk element of it is particularly special.
Fiona Hyslop mentioned the 20th birthday party of the Falkirk wheel, an incredible structure that links the two canals. If you are coming from Edinburgh, in order to get to the Falkirk wheel you have to pass through the Falkirk tunnel. It is quite long and could be quite eerie, but it is lit. It is 630m long, 18ft wide, 19ft high and it has a 5ft-wide towpath.
At one end of the tunnel, there is a plaque which tells us that the mass murderers Burke and Hare worked on the tunnel. The local interest is that Burke’s mistress, Helen McDougal, was a local girl. Of course, Burke and Hare then went on to murder 16 people and sold their bodies to an anatomy school. It is thought, rather concerningly, that they also disposed of bodies in the canal, although I am sure that they are not there anymore. I mention that story because both the Union canal and the Forth and Clyde canal have a rich history.
For me, the value of the canal is in getting people out in the open air. It is such a great resource to have on so many people’s doorsteps from Edinburgh to Glasgow, with the two canals now connected. The canal is fantastic—people can walk it; I have seen people fish in it; and the great flotilla will be a marvellous sight to see this weekend.
I will end here, Presiding Officer. I thank Fiona Hyslop again. The canal has a great future, and Scottish Canals must be commended for maintaining it and keeping it going. I hope that more and more people get the opportunity to go see it and use it.
13:00