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 3584 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Gillian Martin
It is important to mention that the human rights bill would not have included absolutely everything that would have got us to compliance with Aarhus. Access to justice has a financial aspect. Having access to a court involves not just the existence of that court or process but the costs that are associated with going through that process. That is why Siobhian Brown prioritised the caps to the expenses that are associated with that, which you have mentioned as a crucial step in access to justice.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Gillian Martin
I am sorry, but may I finish my point, Ms Lennon?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Gillian Martin
I will try to.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Gillian Martin
Could you?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Gillian Martin
Siobhian Brown has said that we are actively putting things in place to comply with the convention. As I said, we are not compelled to sign up to the convention, because we are not an independent state and we are not a member of the EU. However, Monica Lennon is absolutely right that we want to keep pace with standards in the EU, including environmental standards, but, in rights terms—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Gillian Martin
The concerns in relation to Scotland were mainly around cost caps. I have outlined how Siobhian Brown has introduced measures to put cost caps in place, because that was the biggest barrier to justice in this area. That has already been done in the areas that I have outlined in order to protect people from runaway legal costs. As I said, there is also the work that she is doing on access to legal aid, which I am hopeful will further enhance that work.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Gillian Martin
Yes. There is certainly scope in the legislation for ESS potentially to do more. I really look forward to seeing what its review comes up with. If it thinks that there are areas in which it can do more, and those fall within the powers of the current legislation, it will be up to Parliament to scrutinise that and to ask it questions about what it would do.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Gillian Martin
Other things are also happening in order to incentivise decarbonisation. For example, there has been a reduction in the amount of free allocations.
In relation to aviation across the UK, for example, we will have no more free allocations after 2026. That has been loudly trumpeted, and people are building up to it. Some of the larger emitters in that area—particularly in aviation, where there is not much danger of carbon leakage—are preparing for the fact that they will not have any free allocations.
It is about a real tightening up and really aligning the ETS with the net zero ambitions and targets of all four nations of the UK.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Gillian Martin
Effectively, it means that there will be no loophole for getting rid of CO2. At the moment, if you were to flare off any gas, you would have the ETS to cover that. We do not want a situation in which CO2 is being vented into the atmosphere, because that essentially has the same effect as flaring. It means that operations will have to be consistent with not venting CO2. The order is really closing a loophole.
It is my understanding that such venting is not exactly a practice that goes on an awful lot, but the order will remove that loophole in case, as I think that I mentioned in my statement, there is a perverse decision to vent without flaring, to avoid impacting ETS allocations.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Gillian Martin
Only a north-easter could ask such an intricate question, which I am pleased to answer. There are a couple of things in there.
Our position is that there must be a fiscal regime in place that allows the oil and gas industry to support its workforce and be instrumental in the transition to net zero. Quite a lot of oil and gas producers are involved in ScotWind licence options, and they support a vast supply chain. There is a well-rehearsed argument that we must ensure that we do not discourage activity in that area because, if we do, the workforce will relocate to other parts of the world, leaving Scotland without the expertise that we need in both the supply chain and the workforce to build out ScotWind and the other industries that will keep us as an energy-producing nation.
Scotland has a good story to tell about decarbonisation, because we have the innovation and targeted oil and gas licensing route. The first licences that have been given through the consenting unit have been for the INTOG scheme, which is about allowing the build-out of floating offshore wind to provide power to existing oil and gas-producing platforms. That means that they can use electricity, rather than diesel, in their production processes, which will markedly reduce production emissions in that area. We are the only part of the UK that has done that, and there are quite a lot of lessons for other oil and gas-producing countries to learn if they are looking to decarbonise their emissions from oil and gas production.
