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
Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Graham Simpson
I thank Jamie Greene for taking an intervention. I appreciate that he is not speaking to his own amendment, but I am sure that Christine Grahame will be grateful that he is speaking to hers.
It comes down to language again. Amendment 99, which relates to guidance that a young applicant must seek, says:
“The applicant must tell the Registrar General what role the individual mentioned in subsection (2) has, or how the individual knows the applicant.”
The bill already includes the provision that such advice must be sought. I appreciate that Jamie Greene did not lodge the amendment, but can he give us his view on what difference the amendment would make to what is already in the bill?
16:15Meeting of the Parliament
Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Graham Simpson
That is exactly what I was about to go on to say. I said that I would quote the cabinet secretary extensively, and that is exactly what I am going to do. She went on to say:
“In that respect, the bill does not change the position in the 2004 act, in which examples of appropriate evidence of living in the acquired gender include updating official documents such as a driving licence, passport, utility bill or bank account. Numerous other examples are provided within the guidance on the 2004 act, which has now been in place for 18 years.”
I asked the cabinet secretary to expand on that, and she said:
“The guidance to the 2004 act uses examples that include consistently using titles and pronouns in line with the acquired gender, updating gender-marker official documents such as a driving licence or passport, updating utility bills or bank accounts, describing themselves and being described by others in written or other communication in line with their acquired gender and using a name that is associated with the acquired gender.
Those are examples of what could constitute living in the acquired gender.”—[Official Report, Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, 15 November 2022; c 54-5.]
Although that was not exactly what I was looking for, I thought that we might have something—
Meeting of the Parliament
Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Graham Simpson
Well, maybe not. However, would someone who is equally upstanding but who keeps themselves to themselves and is therefore not known in the community not qualify?
Meeting of the Parliament
Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Graham Simpson
I hoped to hear from Mr Marra so that he could persuade me.
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
Graham Simpson
When are we going to see the national smart travel card that the SNP promised us more than six years ago?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Economic Outlook
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Graham Simpson
Okay. John Swinney is making a statement tomorrow. If you were to speak to him today, what is the one thing that you would ask him to announce tomorrow?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Economic Outlook
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Graham Simpson
I am going to ask another question about inflation, and I will start with Professor Chadha. First, I congratulate you on managing to get the word “hipster” into a recent report that you wrote. Well done for that.
The Bank of England published its monetary policy report recently, and it predicted that inflation could fall to 1.4 per cent by the end of 2024. That is quite a dramatic drop. What is that based on, and is there any prospect of it actually happening?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Economic Outlook
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Graham Simpson
That is fair enough. Although inflation is the big issue, you are saying that we need some inflation. We do not want to choke off inflation altogether because that could have harmful effects.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Economic Outlook
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Graham Simpson
I will widen the question for the other two witnesses. How confident are you that the economy in general can recover in the next year to 18 months, say? I will ask Susan Murray that first, and then Emma Congreve. Can you give us any Christmas cheer? Everyone seems to be a bit gloomy at the moment.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Graham Simpson
Well, that was really not any kind of answer. The Auditor General said the following about Ferguson Marine:
“During 2021-22, the Scottish Government wrote off £52 million from the capital value. The value of vessels 801 and 802 in the Consolidated Accounts at 31 March 2022 was £78 million.”
So far, the cost of building the vessels has been well in excess of £200 million for vessels that are worth £78 million, and that gap is only going to get wider. Does the minister believe that that is value for money?
