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 14446 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
Urgent Questions
Meeting date: 14 May 2021
Alison Johnstone
Again, I give my apologies to members I have been unable to call.
Meeting of the Parliament
Deputy Presiding Officers
Meeting date: 14 May 2021
Alison Johnstone
Voting in the first round of the election of the first Deputy Presiding Officer is now closed. The clerks will now take the ballot boxes to room P1.02, and I invite any scrutineers appointed by the candidates to make their way to P1.02 to observe the counting of ballot papers, while observing social distancing.
All other members may now remove their face coverings.
In this round of voting in the election of the Deputy Presiding Officer, the number of votes cast for each candidate was as follows: Clare Adamson 9, Claire Baker 13, Jeremy Balfour 10, James Dornan 7, Annabelle Ewing 35, Rhoda Grant 12, Bill Kidd 4, Liam McArthur 16, Stuart McMillan 5 and Edward Mountain 13. There was one abstention and one spoiled ballot paper. Accordingly, as no candidate has received an overall majority of the votes cast and as Bill Kidd received the fewest votes, he is eliminated from the election and a further round will take place with the following candidates: Clare Adamson, Claire Baker, Jeremy Balfour, James Dornan, Annabelle Ewing, Rhoda Grant, Liam McArthur, Stuart McMillan and Edward Mountain.
There will be a short break while ballot papers are printed. I suspend the meeting for five minutes.
11:09 Meeting suspended.11:19 On resuming—
Meeting of the Parliament
Deputy Presiding Officers
Meeting date: 14 May 2021
Alison Johnstone
I am willing to consider such a recess. That is agreed.
For clarity, I say that members who wish to withdraw at this stage can be re-entered for the second Deputy Presiding Officer position.
I am advised that James Dornan and Stuart McMillan have withdrawn. The list of nominees is therefore Claire Baker, Jeremy Balfour, Annabelle Ewing, Rhoda Grant, Liam McArthur and Edward Mountain. There will now be a short break while ballot papers are printed.
12:05 Meeting suspended.12:14 On resuming—
Meeting of the Parliament
Deputy Presiding Officers
Meeting date: 14 May 2021
Alison Johnstone
Voting in this round of the Deputy Presiding Officer election is now closed. I invite the scrutineers to proceed to P1.02 for the counting of votes.
In this round of voting in the election of the Deputy Presiding Officer, the number of votes cast for each candidate was: Claire Baker 9, Jeremy Balfour 6, Annabelle Ewing 58, Rhoda Grant 14, Liam McArthur 26 and Edward Mountain 13. There were no abstentions or spoiled ballot papers. Accordingly, as no candidate has received an overall majority of the votes cast and as Jeremy Balfour received the fewest votes, he is eliminated and a further round will take place with Claire Baker, Annabelle Ewing, Rhoda Grant, Liam McArthur and Edward Mountain.
However, I suggest that we break for lunch, while ballot papers are printed, and that we resume the process at 1.45.
Meeting of the Parliament
Deputy Presiding Officers
Meeting date: 14 May 2021
Alison Johnstone
Voting in this round of the Deputy Presiding Officer election is closed. I invite the scrutineers to proceed to room P1.02 for the counting of votes.
Meeting of the Parliament
Deputy Presiding Officers
Meeting date: 14 May 2021
Alison Johnstone
I thank Ms Baillie for that point of order. Under the rules, members can withdraw. Members should notify the clerks if they wish to do so.
In this round of voting in the election of the Deputy Presiding Officer, the number of votes cast for each candidate was as follows: Clare Adamson 5, Claire Baker 8, Jeremy Balfour 9, James Dornan 6, Annabelle Ewing 44, Rhoda Grant 11, Liam McArthur 22, Stuart McMillan 6 and Edward Mountain 15. There were no abstentions or spoiled ballot papers. The candidate eliminated is Clare Adamson. Accordingly, as no candidate has received an overall majority of the votes cast, a further round will take place with the following candidates: Claire Baker, Jeremy Balfour, James Dornan, Annabelle Ewing, Rhoda Grant, Liam McArthur, Stuart McMillan and Edward Mountain.
There will be a short break while ballot papers are printed.
Meeting of the Parliament
Urgent Questions
Meeting date: 14 May 2021
Alison Johnstone
Thank you. That concludes urgent questions. I apologise again to members whom I was unable to call.
Members might wish to note that the next meeting of Parliament will be at 2 pm on Tuesday 18 May, to select a nominee for appointment as First Minister.
I close this first meeting of the sixth session of the Scottish Parliament.
Meeting closed at 16:47.Meeting of the Parliament
Urgent Questions
Meeting date: 14 May 2021
Alison Johnstone
I appreciate that this is a very important matter, but we have a lot of questions to get through and I would like to involve as many members as possible. I call Anas Sarwar, to be followed by Annie Wells. I would appreciate concise questions and responses where possible.
Meeting of the Parliament
Urgent Questions
Meeting date: 14 May 2021
Alison Johnstone
My apologies to members who have not been called.
Meeting of the Parliament
Deputy Presiding Officers
Meeting date: 14 May 2021
Alison Johnstone
Good morning. The next item of business is the election of two Deputy Presiding Officers. The nominees are Clare Adamson, Claire Baker, Jeremy Balfour, James Dornan, Annabelle Ewing, Rhoda Grant, Bill Kidd, Liam McArthur, Stuart McMillan and Edward Mountain.
The election shall again proceed in accordance with temporary rule 1 of standing orders, with voting procedures the same as those used in the election of the Presiding Officer. If no member receives an overall majority in the first round of voting, there will be subsequent rounds.
The same procedure will be followed for the election of the second Deputy Presiding Officer. When the first Deputy Presiding Officer is elected, voting rounds will begin for the second Deputy Presiding Officer, involving all candidates who were unsuccessful in the election of the first Deputy Presiding Officer.
To ensure everyone’s safety in line with Covid-19 protocols, I ask all members to put on their face coverings now, unless they have a medical exemption.
I declare the election of the first Deputy Presiding Officer open. The clerks will begin distributing the ballot papers.
Members voted by secret ballot.
