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 2490 contributions
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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Community Planning Inquiry (Post-legislative Scrutiny of the Community Empowerment Act 2015)
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Miles Briggs
I will pick on Peter Kelly, as he referred to Edinburgh and Midlothian.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Miles Briggs
On the back of those questions, what assessment has there been of the impact of the late or delayed payment to people, especially in rural Scotland? Have you reached out to any fuel poverty charities to find out what impact it has had, especially for people off grid?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Miles Briggs
That would be helpful.
As I said in the chamber, I welcome that you have written to councils to ask them to highlight what support is available. Do you know whether that has been undertaken?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Miles Briggs
I was not going to ask this, but we have had a very political argument, which I do not think necessarily puts Scotland’s true finances into context. I wonder whether the minister wants to put on record the fact that the Barnett formula provides an additional £2,000 per head in Scotland compared with the other parts of the UK, which is allowing us to take the decisions that he refers to. There is also the global impact. The minister very briefly talked about the war in Ukraine; on Friday it will be one year since that illegal invasion began, and it has had a global impact. I am not pretending in any way that we have been cushioned from it, but reality needs to be taken on board when we are talking about these issues. There is also the fiscal position, in which our country has spent £8 billion more—the Barnett formula allows us to do that. Does the minister recognise that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Miles Briggs
In pure economic terms, however, that was £8 billion less than we spent.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Miles Briggs
Being able to provide mid-market rent sustainably is crucial to meeting affordable housing targets. Will the Scottish Government commit to have mid-market rents that registered social landlords or their subsidiaries provide redesignated so that they come under social rent regulations instead of private rent regulations?
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Miles Briggs
Fifty-seven people—predominantly young people—accidentally drowned in Scotland last year. The Scottish Government’s plan to halve accidental drownings by 2026 was announced four years ago, but deaths last year rose to their highest level since 2015. What impact does the minister think the closure of swimming pools across Scotland will have on that?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Miles Briggs
Have others had the same experience?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Miles Briggs
Good morning, cabinet secretary and officials. Thank you for joining us.
Why has the Scottish Government put forward an extension of only six months, not a year, given that the aim—I think—is really to cater for the situation here in Edinburgh over the festival period?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Miles Briggs
The committee has heard evidence and calls from organisations such as Festivals Edinburgh for home sharing and home letting to be fully exempt from the legislation and the licensing scheme, especially when supporting major events. You have touched on the order being a piece of health and safety legislation, at heart. What is your view on that call? Will the Government consider it as part of the review?
