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 1469 contributions
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Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Crisis in Ukraine
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Clare Adamson
Are there any further questions from committee members?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Crisis in Ukraine
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Clare Adamson
Is that agreed at local authority level?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Clare Adamson
Good morning, and a warm welcome to the fourth meeting in 2023 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. Our first agenda item is a decision on taking agenda item 3 in private. Are members content to take that item in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Crisis in Ukraine
Meeting date: 26 January 2023
Clare Adamson
Good morning, and a very warm welcome to the third meeting in 2023 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. Donald Cameron MSP is attending the meeting remotely.
Agenda item 1 is to continue our deliberations on the crisis in Ukraine. We welcome to the committee for the first time Andrii Kuslii, consul and head of the consulate of Ukraine in Edinburgh.
We are interested in Scotland’s humanitarian response to the war in Ukraine.
I invite the consul to make an opening statement.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Crisis in Ukraine
Meeting date: 26 January 2023
Clare Adamson
We now move into private session. Thank you.
10:00 Meeting continued in private until 10:29.Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Crisis in Ukraine
Meeting date: 26 January 2023
Clare Adamson
Thank you very much for your opening statement.
I would like to say that those problems are unfamiliar and new to us, but a lot of the issues that you have raised are, unfortunately, challenges for many people in Scotland at the moment. We will examine some of them in light of the competency of the Scottish Government. Some of the issues that you raise will be in the gift of the UK Parliament to address. The committee will decide on this later, but one possibility is that we write to the UK Government to raise the specific concerns around car reregistration and the issues that relate to the Department for Work and Pensions.
To speak personally, the displaced Ukrainians in my constituency are my constituents, and my door is open—I am sure that that is also true of my MP colleagues and councillors across Scotland. We are there to represent them as our constituents while they are living in Scotland, and there might be things that we can do individually to address some of those issues. I encourage anyone who lives in Motherwell and Wishaw to come to my door.
It seems that there is a gap with regard to the provision of a basic pack of information or a one-stop shop for people to get advice. I am sure that we will want to explore that with the minister.
I return to unemployment, seeking employment and qualifications issues. Those issues were raised with the minister when he visited my constituency several months ago as the very first families came to live in Motherwell and Wishaw. The specific issue is professional qualifications—in particular, teaching qualifications. I am interested to know what routes are being offered to the people whom you have spoken to. Pointing people to a jobcentre is maybe not appropriate for everyone.
09:15In my work as a constituency MSP, I have successfully put people in touch with Skills Development Scotland. Ukrainian people have the same rights that anyone else in Scotland has to receive such support. Are you aware of that? What more would you like to see from professional organisations with regard to accepting the qualifications of the Ukrainians who are here?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Crisis in Ukraine
Meeting date: 26 January 2023
Clare Adamson
We will have the opportunity next week to discuss all the points that you raise today with the local authorities, because the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities will be at the committee. The minister will attend the following week. We will take the points forward.
We will move to questions from other committee members and start with Donald Cameron, who is the deputy convener.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Crisis in Ukraine
Meeting date: 26 January 2023
Clare Adamson
Thank you. I think that that exhausts the committee’s questions.
Consul Kuslii, thank you for your attendance this morning. You opened with recognition and thanks for everything that Scotland is doing. Although we appreciate that, it is clear that there is much more that we could be doing to deliver holistic support for displaced Ukrainians. We will take those issues up with UK Government and local government colleagues. Indeed, there might be some interest from other committees of this Parliament, given that we heard about issues around health, local authorities and education.
Thank you again. You have given us a lot of food for thought, and we will follow up on that. We look forward to following up with you on those concerns. Again, we stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Presidency of the Council of the European Union
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Clare Adamson
You opened by talking about Ukraine. I was lucky enough to attend the Nordic Council in the latter part of last year, and Ukraine dominated the discussions there. A few members are interested in that area. I bring in Dr Allan.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Presidency of the Council of the European Union
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Clare Adamson
Ambassador, you have mentioned young people quite a few times. My experience at the Nordic Council showed me how much the youth from each country were included in the process. They took part in the plenary sessions and were fully involved.
As a country, we were very active in the Erasmus exchange across Europe. Considering the economic challenges and the growth areas that you see for young people, how can our educational establishments and young people continue to engage in that kind of exchange across Europe, albeit that that would be outwith the European Union?
