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 981 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Additional Support for Learning Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Willie Rennie
But you would try to make the case.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Additional Support for Learning Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
Willie Rennie
Susan Quinn has just brought everything into sharp focus with her explanation of the training that is required. Teachers are specialists, but in many ways they are generalists as well, so they have to cover a range of areas. The depth of knowledge that they require, sometimes for just the one pupil who may come along from time to time, is huge. The enormity of the task is beyond what I initially thought.
Do teachers feel helpless when faced with all of that? Do they think that it is just such a big task that they feel helpless and that they will not be able to get sufficiently knowledgeable to meet all the children’s needs, or do they still hope that they can get to that point and provide a good-quality education? What is the feeling in that respect?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Additional Support for Learning Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
Willie Rennie
I am really interested in what you said. Everybody else was nodding when you were saying it. Am I right in thinking that you are saying that it is not so much that there is a presumption of mainstreaming but almost a rule that a child should be mainstreamed?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 7 February 2024
Willie Rennie
The minister will have read some of the comments from the Society of Editors. Is she able to give a substantial response to its concerns to explain why she thinks that its issues are not valid?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 February 2024
Willie Rennie
I have raised previously with your predecessors an issue about the take-up for eligible two-year-olds. We were previously told that the data-sharing arrangement with HM Revenue and Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions would significantly increase the take-up, but the figures from last year showed a decrease in the actual numbers and in the percentage take-up. That is a real concern for me, given that the data-sharing arrangement is in place.
In addition, there seem to have been huge variations from one local authority to another. Has the minister looked at why there has been such variation and why we have not managed to drive up the take-up? Liberal Democrats were strong advocates of provision for that group of two-year-olds, and I am disappointed that we have not been able to give parents of those children the opportunity to take up that early learning and childcare provision when they have been offered it.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 February 2024
Willie Rennie
I am concerned about the fact that the Government has put its confidence in the data-sharing provision to solve the problem. I have previously raised the fact that the provision for two-year-olds is not available in every community, because there might not always be sufficient numbers to justify full provision. That might mean that families who do not have the wherewithal to travel would have to travel quite significant distances to access a centre.
Could the minister look at that in particular, to make sure that we do not have large areas where there is no provision, with the result that isolated individuals cannot access the provision? I think that that is one reason why we have not had the level of take-up that I would have liked. I could perhaps have understood it if the take-up was static, but the reduction in numbers is a real concern.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 7 February 2024
Willie Rennie
Will the minister give that consideration and lodge an amendment?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 7 February 2024
Willie Rennie
The minister set out concerns about Miles Briggs’s amendments, but is she opposed in principle to putting that guidance on a statutory footing, which is what many campaigners are calling for? If not, will she consider lodging an amendment at stage 3 to do exactly that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 7 February 2024
Willie Rennie
I realise that the issue that I am about to raise would probably be for the regulation stage.
Some people argue that restraint should almost be excluded completely, because they see its use as a failure to manage the young person in a more effective way. Do you envisage a minimalist approach? I know that you are not in favour of banning restraint completely, but where would you draw the line? What guidance should we give on that for the next stage?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 31 January 2024
Willie Rennie
My question follows on from Liam Kerr’s point. We understand that more discussion is needed and we understand the complexity of the issue, but what often happens in such cases is that we agree to further discussion and consultation beyond the bill and then there is no vehicle for delivering it. If the matter will not be addressed in this bill, I hope that the minister has thought about what bill it would be addressed in—perhaps the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. If so, has she had a discussion with the cabinet secretary about that possibility?
We want a degree of urgency about the issue. We know that it is complex, but, as Ruth Maguire said, it should not be beyond the wit of us to come up with a solution. My fear is that, as the minister has outlined it, we might be making perfect the enemy of good. She has highlighted some conflicts that there might be within families—of course there will be those; you get them in all legal cases, in many circumstances—but that does not mean that we should not go there. We need to make sure that the courts and the system are empowered to make the right decision in the best interests of what they believe is the balance of rights in the circumstances.
I want to be confident that the minister has thought through where the issue will be addressed, so that we are not here in five years’ time, saying that we have missed the chance.
