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: 31 October 2023
Edward Mountain
We look forward to getting the additional information that the cabinet secretary has kindly offered to give us.
Cabinet secretary, I thank you and your officials for attending, and I briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a changeover of witnesses.
09:29 Meeting suspended.09:31 On resuming—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Water Annual Report and Accounts 2022-23
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Edward Mountain
Our next item of business is an evidence session with Scottish Water and Business Stream, which is a subsidiary of Scottish Water. This is a chance for the committee to check in with Scottish Water on its important role. We will consider its most recent annual report and look ahead to its main priorities and challenges.
Before I go any further, I welcome Sarah Boyack, who is attending the meeting and who will get to ask questions at the end, once committee members have had a chance to ask a few questions.
As a matter of information, I remind people that I, along with every other person in Scotland—or the majority of people in Scotland, although not everyone—am a client of Scottish Water in the sense that I get water, but I am also a client of Business Stream, in that I get water from it for my farm. I say that just so that there is no dubiety about that.
I am pleased to welcome Dame Susan Rice, the chair of Scottish Water; Alex Plant, the chief executive of Scottish Water; Peter Farrer, the chief operating officer of Scottish Water; and Johanna Dow, the chief executive of Business Stream. Thank you for joining us.
Before we move to questions, I believe, Dame Susan, that you wish to make an opening statement. That is very formal—do you mind if I call you Susan?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Water Annual Report and Accounts 2022-23
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Edward Mountain
I think that you want to make a brief opening statement.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Edward Mountain
That was for committees with a much bigger structure. In such cases, it might be possible to achieve that with the gender balance that we have in the Parliament, as members are available for that.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Edward Mountain
On quotas, you might be drifting away from that approach. As a Parliament, we cannot direct how parties select their candidates—that is outwith parliamentary control. It might be that a party’s selection and then election process—even if there was a 50:50 candidate split—could result in a party having one more male than female, or the other way round. You cannot direct quotas, because you cannot direct the election. Therefore, I do not understand how you feel that you can implement a quota system. How do you implement it?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Edward Mountain
I totally agree with that. However, if, despite my preference, I am excluded because of quotas, that is wrong.
As a committee convener, I do a huge amount of work with clerks to ensure that I do not have an all-male panel or an all-female panel. I ensure that there is balance. Setting quotas prevents that, and it worries me that the best person for the job would be prevented from doing it. I do not care whether they are male or female; I want the best person for the job.
09:45Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Edward Mountain
Thank you, convener. I am delighted to be back on the committee, which is one that I have always enjoyed immensely. I hope that, at the end of this meeting, you will still be able to say that you enjoyed having me.
I have no interests that are relevant to the meeting to declare, but I remind members that I have in the register of members’ interests an entry that says that I own property, am part of a family farming partnership and have a wild fishery on the river Spey.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Edward Mountain
The only comment that I would make is that I was on this committee at the start of the session and I am now back as a substitute—I am in the fourth group of people from my party who have been on this committee. The membership will constantly change, and I cannot see how you can force it—that is my problem.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Edward Mountain
I have a small question on committee membership. If, during a session, somebody is asked to step down from a committee to try to get a balance, they can, of course, refuse to do so. I do not have to resign from a committee just because my party wants me to; I have to write to the Presiding Officer and say that I want to resign. You might not be able to achieve this aim without a lot more significant rule changes, and you might be ordering somebody to leave a committee when they have expressed a preference to attend it. Would you feel comfortable with doing that?
10:00Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Edward Mountain
Okay. What you have put forward has not convinced me that that is the right way to go, as you have said that the recommendation is there just as a matter for discussion.
Convener, you know my views on proxy voting, because I was on the committee when it was discussed. It is the most excellent thing that we have brought in, and it is important that we continue it. I will just comment that it is important to increase access to it for parental leave, bereavement and illness. I struggle to imagine an MSP voting against that, because we never know what is around the corner.
I agree on the data collection point.
I will turn to the issue of quotas, which is where I have some issues. Susan Duffy, do you agree that, when you select somebody to do a job, it does not matter where they come from or whether they are male or female and that the most important thing is to get the best person to do that job?
