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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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Edward Mountain
Thank you for that brief question and brief answer, which bring us to the end of this session. I will suspend the meeting until 11:15 to allow for a changeover of witnesses and let members prepare for the next item. Cabinet secretary, thank you and your officials for attending. You are staying with the committee for the next item, so we will see you shortly.
11:07 Meeting suspended.11:15 On resuming—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
United Kingdom Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Edward Mountain
Our next item is evidence on a type 1 consent notification on the Persistent Organic Pollutants (Amendment) Regulations 2023.
The United Kingdom Government is seeking the Scottish Government’s consent to legislate in an area of devolved competence in respect of a UK statutory instrument. On 18 June, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition notified the committee of the UK instrument. The Scottish Government asked whether the committee could, exceptionally, consider the regulations by 28 June, in order to complete parliamentary consideration before the summer recess. I agreed to place the item on the agenda for this meeting.
The committee’s role is to decide whether it agrees with the Scottish Government’s proposal to consent to the UK Government making the regulations within devolved competence, and in the manner that the UK Government has indicated to the Scottish Government. We aim to come to a view on that after today’s evidence.
I am pleased to welcome back Màiri McAllan, Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition. The cabinet secretary is joined by Dan Merckel, chemicals team leader from the Scottish Government. Before we move on to questions, would you like to make a brief opening statement, cabinet secretary?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Edward Mountain
You do not need to worry: that point has now been connected, but it took an awfully long time to get there. The point is that £30 million has been put aside and we have spent only £7 million. That is quite a drop, and there is a mismatch, if we need so many more.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Edward Mountain
The vastness of your portfolio is fully understood by the committee, which has a vast remit as well. Sometimes, we struggle to get round to every part of it, but we will have a go today. Ash Regan will start questions.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
United Kingdom Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Edward Mountain
We will communicate that to the Government. That concludes the public part of the meeting.
11:31 Meeting continued in private until 12:39.Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Edward Mountain
Good morning, and welcome to the 23rd meeting in 2023 of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. We have received apologies from Jackie Dunbar, and Bob Doris is attending the meeting as a substitute member for the Scottish National Party. Welcome, again, Bob.
This is our first public meeting since our deputy convener, Fiona Hyslop, left the committee to take up her new role as Minister for Transport. I am sure that we all agree that the committee benefited greatly from Fiona’s experience in government and the diligence that she showed while on the committee. We all wish her well in her new role—there are lots of things to deal with. I am glad that we have that on the record.
Under our first agenda item, we must decide whether to take items 5 and 6 in private. Item 5 is consideration of the evidence that we will hear under item 2, and item 6 is consideration of our work programme. Do members agree to take those items in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Edward Mountain
I have a question before we leave the topic of the environment, cabinet secretary. You have explained the importance of biodiversity and the aim to reach net zero. We grow a few trees on the farm, but purely for non-commercial purposes. Across Scotland, there was a commercial target for 15,000 hectares to be planted last year, but we achieved only 8,000 hectares, which is 53 per cent of the total. Since 2016, we have been gradually dropping behind the Government targets year on year. Does that worry you?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Edward Mountain
We saw an agreement signed between Lorna Slater and private investment to increase forestry. We tried to find out exactly what that would involve, what levels of funding were going to be generated and how the private sector was going to benefit from it—because, although it is altruistic, I am sure, in wanting to see more trees, there must be some benefit. However, I am not sure that we ever got to the bottom of that. Do you fully understand it, cabinet secretary?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Edward Mountain
I have a couple of questions on transport. In its pre-budget scrutiny last year, the committee looked at the roll-out of electric vehicles and charging points. I believe that you indicated when you wrote to us that there will be quite a lot of public investment in that—£30 million, I think—on top of the Government’s investment. When you updated the committee this year, I think that £7.25 million of the funding had been allocated to date, but no new charging point installations had been directly supported by the fund. Installations are expected to begin in early 2024.
Are we dropping behind on EV charging points? Do you think that, if we had more, there would be more EVs on the roads because people would have confidence that they could top them up when they needed to?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
United Kingdom Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Edward Mountain
Are you happy with that, Mark, or do you want to hear from Dan Merckel?
