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.
Filter your results Hide all filters
Displaying 2085 contributions
|
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Land Commission (Appointment of Chair and Commissioners)
Meeting date: 21 December 2023
Monica Lennon
On a point of order, Presiding Officer.
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Land Commission (Appointment of Chair and Commissioners)
Meeting date: 21 December 2023
Monica Lennon
The cabinet secretary has accused the committee of being disingenuous. Part of our scrutiny involved reacting to information about this confidential process being leaked to the media.
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Land Commission (Appointment of Chair and Commissioners)
Meeting date: 21 December 2023
Monica Lennon
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Land Commission (Appointment of Chair and Commissioners)
Meeting date: 21 December 2023
Monica Lennon
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Land Commission (Appointment of Chair and Commissioners)
Meeting date: 21 December 2023
Monica Lennon
I regret that the cabinet secretary did not take my intervention, but what she has said is not appropriate. Yes, we put out that letter in September, but information—[Interruption.]—about the process was leaked to the media, and that should not be lost. Can I ask your advice, Presiding Officer—
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Monica Lennon
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will reconsider its reported plans to downgrade the Wishaw neonatal intensive care unit. (S6O-02903)
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Monica Lennon
The minister’s answer will infuriate and worry my constituents in Lanarkshire, and it represents a further blow to Wishaw’s award-winning neonatal workforce. Almost 20,000 people have now signed a petition to stop the Scottish Government downgrading the award-winning, vital, life-saving service in Wishaw. We have a flawed proposal and a flawed process that has produced a flawed decision. It is vulnerable babies, their mothers and families who will be failed unless the minister listens, looks again and does her job properly. Will she extend some festive good will to my constituents, the Wishaw Neonatal Warriors, and finally commit to a full independent review in the new year?
Meeting of the Parliament
Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023
Meeting date: 14 December 2023
Monica Lennon
Perhaps she raised that point with the SNP leadership. I see that the party’s depute leader, Keith Brown, wants to intervene. I am happy to hear from Mr Brown.
Meeting of the Parliament
Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023
Meeting date: 14 December 2023
Monica Lennon
The Labour amendment adds to the Government motion. That is constructive and shows that there is a lot of agreement. The amendment simply asks for support for Labour’s new deal for working people. A message from this Parliament would reinforce what we want colleagues down the road to do. Is there a problem? Will the member vote against the Labour amendment tonight?
Meeting of the Parliament
Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023
Meeting date: 14 December 2023
Monica Lennon
I, too, refer to my entry in the register of members’ interests as a member of the trade unions GMB and Unite, and to the voluntary section of my entry, which lists my memberships of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, the Public and Commercial Services Union and the Communication Workers Union and of parliamentary groups, and which notes that I chair the Scottish Labour trade union group.
Those declarations keep me on the right side of the Parliament’s rules, but I am very proud to be a trade unionist, like my colleagues on the Labour benches. I first joined a trade union as a graduate worker, more than 20 years ago, several years before I joined the Labour Party. The importance of being in a trade union was drilled into me through my family background and my community experience. I say to colleagues on the Tory benches that, while being in a trade union might be viewed as ideological, trade unions are good for the economy, and smart employers and smart politicians understand that.
More than two decades on from when my working life began, I am in despair at the state of workers’ rights in Britain, as they are more precarious now than at any time that I remember. What kind of future will my 17-year-old daughter and her friend group have? They already know what it is like to be on a zero-hours contract. They know that working hard and being in work is not a protective measure against poverty and that a college or university qualification does not guarantee them fair work.
Like other members who have spoken today, I am appalled that we are having this debate, not because it is a waste of time or because there are other things that we should be talking about, but because our constituents are worried. We are days away from Christmas, and Liam Kerr and I have just been singing Christmas carols together—he had my festive Christmas glasses on, and I have my reindeer dress on. For a lot of people right now, however, there is not a lot to be cheerful about. Many people want to see the Tories at Westminster getting sacked this Christmas.
I would like to see the Conservatives in this place stand up to their colleagues. It is not always easy to do that in a political party, but they should not just be apologists. We have seen the Tories in the Scottish Parliament stand up to their colleagues at Westminster before—maybe it is time for them to do it again.
The Prime Minister may well be one of the richest men in Britain today, but his rotten Government is morally bankrupt. The Tories at Westminster are out of control because they know that they are on borrowed time. We are seeing, not just with the Tories’ UK Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 but in many other actions, a full-frontal assault on workers’ rights. I am relieved, therefore, that the Scottish Government will not enforce the 2023 act, which attacks the dignity and rights of public sector workers.
I was pleased to hear the cabinet secretary state today that fair work ambitions are the bedrock of the Scottish Government’s vision for the wellbeing economy. I support that, but we all need to work harder in Parliament to ensure that the actions that we take match that ambition. That means funding our public services properly, using public procurement powers to improve workers’ terms and conditions, tackling the growing disability pay gap in Scotland, and tackling the rise of zero-hours contracts.
I know that Clare Haughey ran out of time to take my intervention, and she has left her seat just now, but we did not hear a peep from her when the SNP was caught using zero-hours contracts in her Rutherglen constituency during a recent by-election.
