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 3346 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
Women’s and Girls’ Safety (Public Transport)
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Graham Simpson
Given the picture that Fulton MacGregor so eloquently describes, I assume that he would agree with me that station staff are of enormous value. Does he agree that we should not be cutting back the number of staff at stations or reducing ticket office hours?
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 2 March 2023
Graham Simpson
I welcome the pilot projects, but we do not want to see those suddenly stopping. Can the minister assure us that funding will continue? Will we see the results of those pilots published?
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 2 March 2023
Graham Simpson
To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to roll out mobility as a service across Scotland. (S6O-01962)
Meeting of the Parliament
Caledonian Sleeper Train
Meeting date: 2 March 2023
Graham Simpson
I thank the minister for advance sight of her statement.
When we debated the future of the Caledonian sleeper service last month, I pointed out how successful the service had become under Serco. The year saw the highest revenue since the start of the franchise, with guest levels back to pre-Covid levels. Performance, guest satisfaction and employee satisfaction were all going up.
The minister has just agreed with all of that. She has just said that the Caledonian sleeper has
“surpassed any other train company in the UK in its recovery from the pandemic.”
She said:
“we see a service that is now thriving.”
She calls it “a world-class service”. There can be no conclusion other than that the decision is ideological.
Jenny Gilruth said nothing about how this world-class service can be improved under the Scottish Government. She has made no case at all for the decision. If it is about value for money, perhaps she can answer this: has she requested or received a costed proposal from Serco for a direct contract award? If she has not—which I suspect is the case—how can she claim or show that she is demonstrating value for money for the Scottish taxpayer?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 1 March 2023
Graham Simpson
Thank you.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 1 March 2023
Graham Simpson
It has been a fascinating evidence session. I have enjoyed all the contributions, but I have to pick you out, Cliff Bowen, because you have been a fantastic advert for your employer. I know that you are not here to represent your employer, which has not yet agreed to come before the committee, but you have painted it in a really good light, and it has absolutely nothing to worry about if it comes here. We are going to visit it so, if you find out the date, it would be good to see you on that visit.
All of you—particularly the union guys—have mentioned the need for investment in infrastructure. It struck me that, when Governments introduce policy, industry leads. Government can do things, and then the investment will follow. Do you have any ideas on what needs to happen to persuade the likes of Ineos to invest more in hydrogen?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 1 March 2023
Graham Simpson
Cliff Bowen spoke about the situation in Germany, where hydrogen filling stations are being put in. If that were done in Scotland, or throughout the UK, that would create a market, would it not?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 1 March 2023
Graham Simpson
The issue is what comes first.
Meeting of the Parliament
Retail and Town Centres
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Graham Simpson
It has been a really interesting debate so far, and I have enjoyed listening to the contributions, particularly the previous one from Siobhian Brown. I am always interested in hearing from her. She mentioned a couple of towns in her patch: Ayr and Prestwick. I had the pleasure of visiting both towns recently. First, I went to Ayr, then to Prestwick. I actually drove through Prestwick town centre. It was the first time that I had been there. I was on my way to the airport, which I have been to a few times, but I had never been through the town centre before.
I remember commenting to a colleague that it is a lovely place, with much variety, and I said that I would have to come back. The picture that Siobhian Brown paints is exactly right. I fully intend to go back, park up and shop. That is the way that I like to see a town centre.
The point is that town centres come in all shapes and sizes. I represent a region where there are lots of towns, and I will mention a few of them. I will start with the town where I live: East Kilbride. We have what is billed as Scotland’s largest undercover shopping mall. It has been struggling for a number of years and it went into administration recently. Yesterday, I spoke to the administrators of that huge shopping centre. I think the message is that it is not all doom and gloom. A plan is being worked on. We could look at reconfiguration, with a bit more of a leisure mix, as opposed to mostly retail. Maybe we can get more housing. The centre has not been put up for sale yet, and I do not think that there is any particular rush in that regard.
If we turn to Hamilton, which the committee visited, the picture is different. It has a covered mall, but most of the town centre is not covered—it is out of doors, a little bit like how it is in Prestwick. Hamilton has a relatively successful BID project, which the committee came across. I should mention that I was not on the committee at the point of its visit; I joined at the tail end of the inquiry.
If we go across to North Lanarkshire, we have Cumbernauld, which is another new town. Unfortunately, it is the two-time winner of the plook on the plinth award, which it won through the—thankfully—now defunct carbuncle awards.
Meeting of the Parliament
Retail and Town Centres
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Graham Simpson
Does Daniel Johnson agree that this is about getting the balance right and not about just having lots of retail? We need to have people living in our town centres. Too many town centres have too few people living there. It is also important to have restaurants and places to eat out, as well as theatres if the space is available.
