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 14171 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
Personal Statement
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Alison Johnstone
Your comments are on the record, Mr Kerr. I will look at them, I will review them and I will be back in touch with you. I, or the most appropriate person with regard to the issues that Mr Kerr raises, will be in touch with him.
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Alison Johnstone
We move to constituency and general supplementaries.
Meeting of the Parliament
Personal Statement
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Alison Johnstone
Given the Parliament’s decision to suspend rule 13.1.4 of standing orders, I will allow a period of around 10 minutes for questions. Any members who wish to put a question should press their request-to-speak button now.
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Alison Johnstone
First Minister.
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Alison Johnstone
First Minister.
It is absolutely impossible to hear any question or response at the moment, because there is far too much noise coming from members. I ask them to desist.
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Alison Johnstone
Mr Ross! You have had an opportunity to put questions to the First Minister. It is extremely important that we carry out our business in an orderly fashion and show one another courtesy and respect.
Meeting of the Parliament
Points of Order
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Alison Johnstone
I thank Mr Kerr for his point of order on a matter that he has previously raised and which I have previously addressed.
As members are aware, the accuracy of members’ contributions is not a matter for the chair to rule on and is not covered by standing orders. However, as a matter of courtesy and respect, I expect all members always to be accurate in their contributions. The Scottish ministerial code also states that it is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to the Parliament and that inadvertent errors are corrected at the earliest opportunity.
Meeting of the Parliament
Personal Statement
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Alison Johnstone
All members will be aware that, where there are matters to be pursued further, they should liaise with their business managers, who can pursue those matters with the Parliamentary Bureau at its meetings. The corporate body shall, of course, consider any referral.
Meeting of the Parliament
Personal Statement
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Alison Johnstone
That concludes the personal statement.
Meeting of the Parliament
Personal Statement
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Alison Johnstone
I will stop you at that point, Mr Kerr.
As I have just said, if you want to avail yourself of the standing orders and look at them with regard to points of order, you will see that points of order are to cover whether or not proper procedures are being or have been followed in the chamber in the course of our parliamentary business. This is not, I suggest, the most appropriate venue for raising the question that you now wish to put.
We will move on to the next item of business, which is portfolio questions. I will allow a moment for those on the front benches to arrange themselves.
