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 1696 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Bill
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Monica Lennon
That is helpful. Thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Bill
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Monica Lennon
Good morning. I want to ask about the offshore wind environmental improvement package, which has been mentioned a couple of times. Is the Scottish Government content with the actions that are being planned by the UK Government to reduce the consent periods for offshore wind projects that are being adopted as part of the offshore wind environmental improvement package?
10:00Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Monica Lennon
I am keen to come on to buses but, for the moment, I will stick with rail and the six-month pilot in relation to peak rail fares. Does the Government hope that the proposed measure will help to widen access? Will any work be done during the pilot or in advance of it to make people aware of it so that more people from different backgrounds use rail?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Monica Lennon
Thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Monica Lennon
That is helpful.
Can you tell us a bit more about how the community bus fund will work in practice, what funds will be available this year and how the fund can help local authorities to establish municipal bus companies?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Monica Lennon
Good morning. I will begin by asking about the fair fares review. There has been a lot of interest in peak rail fares and the announcement about their abolition as part of the fair fares review. Given the public’s and the committee’s interest in that, could you explain the rationale behind the abolition of peak rail fares? Some people have pointed out that rail travel is most frequently used by men, people who are on higher incomes and older age groups, so can you provide some comment on the socioeconomic rationale behind that decision?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Monica Lennon
Thank you. You said how important bus services are to our communities, and in respect of achieving net zero, which is the focus of this committee. Does the Scottish Government feel that enough progress is being made in establishing municipal bus companies in Scotland? What further action can the Scottish Government take to support such a development? We know that there are funding pressures. You have itemised some of the amounts here, including £5 million of capital resource, but I do not know how far that goes when spread across all the local authorities. Are you content with the progress so far?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Monica Lennon
Finally, are you familiar with the term “bus deserts”? It is a term that we are hearing more and more. Communities are quite pleased that there is more opportunity for free bus travel, but that is no good to people if there is no bus to get on or it does not run at a time that suits them to get to work or school or to go about their daily business. Is that issue forming part of that on-going research and development? Is the term “bus deserts” worrying to you?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Monica Lennon
That is okay, convener—not a problem.
Cabinet secretary, you mentioned industry. I am keen to know whether Transport Scotland has undertaken any research or engaged with bus operators to establish whether the level of funding that is provided through the network support grant is sufficient to maintain and develop bus services across Scotland.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Monica Lennon
Good morning, convener. I am grateful to the committee for the opportunity to speak about the petition again. I will avoid repeating points that I have made previously.
I join the convener in thanking Ann and Gerry Stark, who are in the public gallery. I thank Ann for lodging the petition and for all the work that she has done to get to this point. They have raised difficult issues that many people cannot even face talking about, but the committee has had a number of supportive submissions from individuals who have had similar experiences.
Committee members know what the petition seeks to do. On the additional information that the committee has had since we last met, the information from colleagues in England is really important, particularly the submission from the coroner. We can see that there is a different approach in other parts of the UK, and divergence can be a good thing. When we have families telling us that there are serious issues about consent, proportionality and dignity for the deceased and their families, we have a duty to look at those issues. I really welcome the additional work by the committee, and I think that the submissions that have been received are helpful.
I still have concerns about the resource and workforce pressures that are raised in the submission from the Royal College of Pathologists. Those issues go beyond this petition, and they merit further explanation. I would certainly like to hear more from the Scottish Government.
To recap, we are here because of Ann and Gerry, who are the parents of Richard Stark. Richard was only 25 when he died in June 2019. It was a sudden and unexpected death. The committee might recall that Ann and Gerry had to fight for a very long time to get answers. Richard’s death certificate was changed about 18 months after he passed away, with the cause of death changed to being a suspected seizure.
Committee members will also be aware that the post mortem was very invasive. I know that this is not pleasant to hear, but, in the committee’s papers, there are details about Richard’s brain, tongue and other body parts being removed.
We have heard evidence about the use of scanners, particularly in different authorities in England. There are resource implications and costs to that, but we have heard how effective those scanners can be.
I am aware that the committee has been given a lot of information, but last week you got an email with a link to a video produced by professors at the University of Leicester. If you have not had a chance to look at that video—I think that it is only three minutes long—I would refer you to it.
On the aspect of the petition that relates to tissue and consent and the role of the next of kin, it should never take a family several months to find out what has happened to their loved one after death. In this case, we are talking about 65 tissue samples, and Ann had to fight the system to have those samples returned. This is going on and people are not talking about it—often because they do not know. Ann knew about it only because she was asking questions. That tells the committee that there are a lot of unknowns.
As you can imagine, it is difficult for Ann and Gerry to sit here today, so I do not want to add much more other than to say that we appreciate the work that the committee has done so far. Ann has felt voiceless in the whole process. The committee has been the only forum in which these issues could be brought into the public arena, so we really welcome the work that has been done. We note that the chief coroner has highlighted a number of points, and I believe that there has been an offer to connect the committee with senior coroners who have experience of the scanning technology. It would be very worth while to pursue that.
I am happy to stop there, convener. Thank you.
