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 4905 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Edward Mountain
I encourage members to stick to the content of the regulations.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Edward Mountain
Would any member like to contribute?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Edward Mountain
As you and I well know, it will be just a quick vote at decision time, so it is simply a question of putting it in.
So, in the regulations that you will bring in to update these regulations, it will just be a matter of amending the date. There will be nothing else in it.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Edward Mountain
But it is just about a date.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Edward Mountain
Okay. I do not mean to labour the point, but I will just say that the process for getting us to where we are today seems very clunky. I find myself in a position where voting against this statutory instrument would put unbearable strains on businesses, but I also believe that there would have been a way of resolving this before Parliament went into recess, if there had been the will to do so. I find it particularly difficult to consider and approve something when I know that, as soon as I approve it—or as I am in the process of approving it—it is invalid. That is my position.
As no one else around the table wants to make a comment, you may make a closing statement, minister. You could of course waive that, if you would like to, and we would move directly to the decision. It is up to you, minister.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Edward Mountain
The committee will report on the outcome of the instrument in due course. I invite the committee to delegate authority to me, as convener, to finalise the report for publication. Is the committee happy with that?
Members indicated agreement.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Edward Mountain
We move on to agenda item 3, which is evidence on progress towards Scotland’s deposit return scheme.
At our meeting on 25 April, the committee agreed to invite the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity to provide a further update on progress in implementing the deposit return scheme.
The draft Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Amendment Regulations 2023 were laid in Parliament on 17 May. The instrument is laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve it? before? it ?comes ?into force. It gives effect to the announcement of an intended postponement of the start date of the scheme from August 2023 to March 2024. The Scottish Government has since announced that it proposes to delay the launch date to October 2025, stating that the scheme
“cannot go ahead as ... planned.”—[Official Report, 6 June 2023; c 3.]
The minister wrote to the committee about her intention to revisit the draft regulations that are on today’s agenda. We have therefore allocated just over an hour for this evidence session to allow some discussion with the minister about recent developments and the Scottish Government’s proposal to revisit the scheme. Following the evidence session, the committee will be invited at the next agenda item to consider a motion to approve the instrument.
Minister, I am sorry for keeping you waiting this morning, but we had some matters to iron out first. I welcome you to the committee and, for those who do not know—I am sure that everyone does—you are the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity. I also welcome, from the Scottish Government, Ailsa Heine, solicitor; David McPhee, deputy director of the deposit and return scheme; Euan Page, head of UK frameworks; and Haydn Thomas, head of the deposit and return scheme policy unit. Thank you for joining us.
We are also joined by Maurice Golden. Maurice, I will offer you the opportunity to ask questions near the end of our session.
I remind everyone that the officials can speak under this agenda item, so if members require answers on anything in the regulations, they will need to raise their question under this item.
Minister, you now have the opportunity to make a short opening statement.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Edward Mountain
I will make an observation, minister. On 14 March, you told the committee that the gateway review was imminent. On 24 March, you said in a letter to the committee that you would make it available. You also advised us that you had:
“committed to provide an indication of when findings from the March Gateway Review will be shared. The review report is currently in the process of being finalised. Therefore I will share the review findings with the committee in due course.”
10:15On 27 April, you told us that that would be imminent. On 8 June, I wrote to you regarding a report on the instructions to the committee and asked for the gateway review to be provided as soon as possible. If a committee asks for a report in March and, by June, it still does not have it, my observation is that that is disrespectful to the committee. I make that observation with no political point. The committees in the Parliament are here for a reason. It would have helped today’s evidence session if we had had that gateway review in front of us. I am not asking you to respond, but I think that it is wrong.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Edward Mountain
I will make no further observation on that, minister, except to re-read your words to you, which are:
“I committed to provide an indication of when the findings from the March Gateway Review will be shared.”
You have shared the other documents, as you have rightly said, which the committee has been pushing for. As convener, my observation is that that has taken too long.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Edward Mountain
I was not saying that there was a chance that the scheme would go forward in 2025; I was saying that there is a chance that CSL might be needed in 2025. From a business point of view, it is a punt to continue funding that level of salaries and costs on the basis that that organisation might be part of the new scheme.
10:30