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 707 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Consumer Scotland
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Gordon MacDonald
I am asking whether there is a number.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Consumer Scotland
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Gordon MacDonald
You have highlighted that you are a research organisation, so you have data-gathering powers. What have you done with those since the organisation was established?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Consumer Scotland
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Gordon MacDonald
What is the capacity of the organisation to carry out in-depth investigations? Could it do one a year or a couple a year? What is the situation?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Consumer Scotland
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Gordon MacDonald
As a consumer, I sat yesterday and tried to find a product recall database. I found one, from Trading Standards Scotland. It highlighted 22 items, ranging from an air fryer to a storage footstool to a battery charger; those were only three of the 22 items that were listed yesterday. The public need one point of contact. They do not want to know that there are 14 or however many databases. They want to go to one place, and it has to be consumer friendly. You mentioned other databases, but typing “product recall” into Google does not highlight the databases that you highlighted. Secondly, they are not consumer friendly at all. If you are going to add value, I suggest that you do it in those two areas, but, for consumers in Scotland, the important question is this: when will you decide your plan of action, whether that is to link to other databases or have your own database, and when will that happen?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scottish Government Policy Priorities (Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy)
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Gordon MacDonald
Going back to the situation with the EU, I note that nine of the top 15 markets identified in the strategy are in it. We have been taken out of the EU against our will, given that 62 per cent of our population voted to remain in it. What impact has that had on Scotland’s exports? Do we need to refocus our attention on the other countries listed in the strategy? In that respect, I am thinking about America, Canada, Switzerland, Norway and China.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Gordon MacDonald
Why is it then that we are still seeing delays to funding in the project? It is inexplicable to many observers that Acorn was excluded from track 1 status. I know that you have responded to questions from Colin Smyth on that point, but can you add more detail about why Acorn is considered secondary to the clusters that the UK Government selected to receive track 1 status?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Gordon MacDonald
When would the first opportunity come around for a review to take place and possible elevation of the Acorn project?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Gordon MacDonald
You have had three major players either withdraw from or pause investment in the east coast project. Does that not cause you to review the east coast project?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Gordon MacDonald
You have mentioned the east coast cluster a couple of times, which was announced for track 1 funding from November 2021. However, in recent weeks, the National Grid has withdrawn, as has Shell, indicating that it would focus on the Acorn project in Scotland. Drax has recently paused its investment in the project, too. What does that do to the viability of the east coast project? Does that give you an opportunity to review funding and bring Acorn closer to getting UK Government funding?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Gordon MacDonald
Good morning, minister. To continue on Colin Smyth’s theme, I am aware that Andrew Bowie, who is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, told our Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on 27 April that he
“would be overwhelmingly delighted should Acorn be successful through the track 2 process.”
He also said that
“it is vital to Scotland’s 2045 net zero ambition ... that we get more carbon capture and storage on stream across the whole of the United Kingdom.”—[Official Report, Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, 27 April 2023; c 10.]
Do you agree?
