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
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Edward Mountain
Our next agenda item is consideration of two negative Scottish statutory instruments: the Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024 and the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc (Scotland) Act 2000 (Codes of Conduct for Members of certain Scottish Public Authorities) Amendment Order 2024—I swear that the titles get longer every time.
The instruments have been laid under the negative procedure, which means that their provisions will come into force unless the Parliament agrees to a motion to annul them. No motions to annul have been lodged.
Let us consider the Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024. As the paper by the clerks explains, the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has drawn the regulations to our attention on the general reporting ground on the basis that the explanatory note was too brief. The Scottish Government responded to that feedback by providing a revised explanatory note for the instrument, which the clerks have included in the papers for this item.
Do members have any comments on the regulations? It would be worth while putting on the record that the quality of the explanatory notes and policy notes from the Scottish Government varies considerably. Some of them are extremely good but, on occasion, the committee has felt that it was not provided with all the information that it required. Perhaps we should make that comment to the Scottish Government but not make any recommendations in relation to the regulations.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 27 February 2024
Edward Mountain
Good morning, and welcome to the eighth meeting of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee in 2024. We have apologies from Monica Lennon and Sarah Boyack MSP is attending in her place as a Scottish Labour substitute member of the committee. Graham Simpson MSP is also here, primarily to ask questions about ferries. Welcome to you both.
The first item on the agenda is a decision on whether to take in private item 6, which is consideration of the evidence that we will hear under item 4, on ferries. Do we agree to take item 6 in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 February 2024
Edward Mountain
Our next item of business is consideration of a draft Scottish statutory instrument. I am pleased to welcome Gillian Martin, the Minister for Energy, Just Transition and Fair Work. She is joined by Karen Dickson, the Scottish Government official who is responsible for energy and markets policy, and Aedan MacRae, energy markets policy officer. Thank you for joining us today.
The instrument is laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that it cannot ?come ?into force unless the Parliament approves it. Following the evidence session, the committee will be invited, under the next agenda item, to consider a motion that the committee recommend to the Parliament that the instrument be approved. I remind everyone that the officials can speak under this agenda item but not in the debate that follows.
Minister, I think that you want to make a brief opening statement.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 February 2024
Edward Mountain
Thank you, minister. There are a few questions. Deputy convener Ben Macpherson will ask the first one.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
MV Glen Sannox (Hull 801) and MV Glen Rosa (Hull 802)
Meeting date: 27 February 2024
Edward Mountain
Well, I think that CalMac has made it clear that it will take 10 weeks to do the training. If I have misrepresented that, I am sure that I can expect a flurry of emails, but it appears that it ain’t gonna come into service until the end of August at the earliest—assuming that there is somewhere to put the boat and some way of refuelling it.
Before we move on, I want to make an observation and then ask one further question. Earlier this year, the committee questioned you on the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s obligations and requirements with regard to escape hatches. In fairness, you showed us quite clearly on Friday where those hatches were. As convener of the committee, though, I was disappointed to find myself in the position of having to write, on behalf of the committee, to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency as well as you and the Scottish Government to identify where the problems had arisen and when they were known about. I am not asking you to comment—it will probably suffice to say that I think that there was a certain amount of smoke and mirrors about this, which was extremely disappointing. However, we are where we are.
Can you confirm to me the original design for 801? I need to check my figures, but I think that its capacity was 1,000 passengers, 127 cars and 16 heavy goods vehicles. Will that be the capacity on the Glen Sannox when it is delivered to CMAL in mid-June?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
MV Glen Sannox (Hull 801) and MV Glen Rosa (Hull 802)
Meeting date: 27 February 2024
Edward Mountain
Before we move off that, can I get a bit of clarity? It sounds as if Tim Hair negotiated piecemeal contracts. Are they the sort of contracts that you would negotiate?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
MV Glen Sannox (Hull 801) and MV Glen Rosa (Hull 802)
Meeting date: 27 February 2024
Edward Mountain
That is not something that you would recommend.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
MV Glen Sannox (Hull 801) and MV Glen Rosa (Hull 802)
Meeting date: 27 February 2024
Edward Mountain
We will leave that.
Douglas Lumsden has questions.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
MV Glen Sannox (Hull 801) and MV Glen Rosa (Hull 802)
Meeting date: 27 February 2024
Edward Mountain
Andrew, will you comment on that and remind the committee of the capital investment that you were looking for about a year ago?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
MV Glen Sannox (Hull 801) and MV Glen Rosa (Hull 802)
Meeting date: 27 February 2024
Edward Mountain
Sorry to interrupt, Mark, but I am keen to push our witnesses on the figure. Do you have a figure for capex for the small ferries programme?
