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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Meeting of the Parliament
Section 35 Order Judicial Review
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Alison Johnstone
That concludes the ministerial statement.
Meeting of the Parliament
Proxy Voting
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Alison Johnstone
The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-11616, in the name of Martin Whitfield, on behalf of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, on standing order rule changes on proxy voting. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak button.
17:12Meeting of the Parliament
Business Motions
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Alison Johnstone
The next item of business is consideration of business motion S6M-11737, in the name of George Adam, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, on a change to the business programme.
Motion moved,
That the Parliament agrees to the following revisions to the programme of business for Thursday 21 December 2023—
after
12.45 pm Portfolio Questions:
Social Justice
insert
followed by Appointments of the Chair and Commissioners of the Scottish Land Commission
delete
1.10 pm Decision Time
and insert
1.30 pm Decision Time—[George Adam]
Motion agreed to.
Meeting of the Parliament
Business Motions
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Alison Johnstone
The next item of business is consideration of business motion S6M-11724, in the name of George Adam, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, on a stage 1 extension.
Motion moved,
That the Parliament agrees that consideration of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill at stage 1 be extended to 8 March 2024.—[George Adam]
Motion agreed to.
Meeting of the Parliament
Decision Time
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Alison Johnstone
That concludes decision time.
Meeting of the Parliament
Decision Time
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Alison Johnstone
Thank you, Mr Bibby. We will ensure that that is recorded.
Meeting of the Parliament
Decision Time
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Alison Johnstone
I propose to ask a single question on two Parliamentary Bureau motions. As no member objects, the question is, that motion S6M-11725, on approval of a Scottish statutory instrument, and motion S6M-11726, on committee meeting times, in the name of George Adam, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, be agreed to.
Motions agreed to,
That the Parliament agrees that the Social Security Information-sharing (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024 [draft] be approved.
That the Parliament agrees that, under Rule 12.3.3B of Standing Orders, the Criminal Justice Committee can meet, if necessary, at the same time as a meeting of the Parliament between 1.00 pm and 2.30 pm on 11 January 2024.
Meeting of the Parliament
Section 35 Order Judicial Review
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Alison Johnstone
We have much interest. I would be grateful if we could have short and concise questions and responses in order to get as many members in as possible.
Meeting of the Parliament
Business Motions
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Alison Johnstone
The next item of business is consideration of business motion S6M-11723, in the name of George Adam, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, setting out a business programme.
Motion moved,
That the Parliament agrees—
(a) the following programme of business—
Tuesday 9 January 2024
2.00 pm Time for Reflection
followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions
followed by Topical Questions (if selected)
followed by Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee Debate: How Devolution is Changing Post-EU
followed by Committee Announcements
followed by Business Motions
followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions
5.00 pm Decision Time
followed by Members’ Business
Wednesday 10 January 2024
2.00 pm Parliamentary Bureau Motions
2.00 pm Portfolio Questions:
Constitution, External Affairs and Culture;
Justice and Home Affairs
followed by Scottish Government Debate: The Impact of UK Government Asylum Policy and Legislation in Scotland
followed by Business Motions
followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions
followed by Approval of SSIs (if required)
5.00 pm Decision Time
followed by Members’ Business
Thursday 11 January 2024
11.40 am Parliamentary Bureau Motions
11.40 am General Questions
12.00 pm First Minister’s Questions
followed by Members’ Business
2.30 pm Parliamentary Bureau Motions
2.30 pm Portfolio Questions:
Education and Skills
followed by Scottish Government Debate: Scotland’s Public Service Values
followed by Business Motions
followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions
5.00 pm Decision Time
Tuesday 16 January 2024
2.00 pm Time for Reflection
followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions
followed by Topical Questions (if selected)
followed by Stage 1 Debate: Visitor Levy (Scotland) Bill
followed by Financial Resolution: Visitor Levy (Scotland) Bill
followed by Committee Announcements
followed by Business Motions
followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions
5.00 pm Decision Time
followed by Members’ Business
Wednesday 17 January 2024
2.00 pm Parliamentary Bureau Motions
2.00 pm Portfolio Questions:
Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy;
Finance and Parliamentary Business
followed by Scottish Labour Party Business
followed by Business Motions
followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions
followed by Approval of SSIs (if required)
5.10 pm Decision Time
followed by Members’ Business
Thursday 18 January 2024
11.40 am Parliamentary Bureau Motions
11.40 am General Questions
12.00 pm First Minister’s Questions
followed by Members’ Business
2.30 pm Parliamentary Bureau Motions
2.30 pm Portfolio Questions:
Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition
followed by Scottish Government Business
followed by Business Motions
followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions
5.00 pm Decision Time
(b) that, for the purposes of Portfolio Questions in the week beginning 8 January 2024, in rule 13.7.3, after the word “except” the words “to the extent to which the Presiding Officer considers that the questions are on the same or similar subject matter or” are inserted.—[George Adam]
Motion agreed to.
Meeting of the Parliament
Decision Time
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Alison Johnstone
The first of today’s three questions is, that motion S6M-11699, in the name of Siobhian Brown, on the Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill, be agreed to. There will be a short suspension to allow members to access the digital voting system.
17:22 Meeting suspended.17:24 On resuming—
