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 1502 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
National Planning Framework (Energy)
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Monica Lennon
Thank you. What are your thoughts on that, Kirstanne Land?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
National Planning Framework (Energy)
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Monica Lennon
I will aim my final question at Morag Watson, who said that we need to start front loading when thinking about how planning decisions are made and how the public engage with that. Will you elaborate on what the missing link is with that? From my understanding, we have been talking about front loading in planning for a long time. Are resources missing, or is it something else?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Monica Lennon
Thank you, cabinet secretary. I appreciate that it is not all within your portfolio, but it is helpful to know that there is a consistency in approach and to get some clarity on that.
Just last night, the BBC Disclosure documentary “Dirty Business” exposed the harmful impact of waste crime in Scotland on people and the environment. We know that it is costing the public purse more than £50 million a year. SEPA has had a difficult time and the full financial impact of the cyberattack on the environment regulator is still not clear. However, we know that it has experienced serious operational disruption and the loss of internal systems and data.
In that context, and in the context of the climate and nature emergency, is it appropriate for the draft budget to dish out a real-terms cut to SEPA of more than 7 per cent?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Monica Lennon
That is very important, cabinet secretary. Thank you.
If I may, convener, I will bring the questioning briefly back to the budget. Is there any provision in the budget for assuring the cybersecurity of public bodies?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
National Planning Framework (Energy)
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Monica Lennon
Thank you. Elizabeth Leighton, I mentioned you, so let me turn to you next.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
National Planning Framework (Energy)
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Monica Lennon
That is helpful. The principles of national developments, given their status, do not need to be agreed in the later consenting process, but they still have to have relevant statutory consent. On paper, it looks as though it should be a quicker process, but there might be other reasons why some projects are not getting off the ground.
I am conscious of time, so I will hand back to the convener.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Monica Lennon
I have listened carefully to the minister and to colleagues, and I have read the briefings from interested stakeholders. It is very disappointing to have the further delay on top of previous delays.
I welcome the ambition, but there has to be more than a paper exercise. I am very concerned about the regulations, and I would like the Government to bring them back to Parliament with a scheme in which everyone can have confidence and which takes account of the concerns that the organisations that I mentioned earlier have raised. I would find it very difficult to give my backing to the proposed regulations as they stand.
If we are ambitious and serious, we have to find a way to make the scheme work. I have read that not everyone is impressed by the gateway process and not everyone feels included. A lot of lobbying has gone on.
Maurice Golden was right to pursue questions of transparency. People are not making party-political points; we really want the scheme to work. I know that the minister, in her heart, wants it to work, so she has to think again.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Monica Lennon
Those were the highlights of what the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland said. Concerns have also been expressed by the Marine Conservation Society, whose submission focuses on the environmental impact of your proposed delay. It reminds us that we are in
“the midst of an intertwined climate emergency and nature crisis”
and says that
“Scotland’s seas and beaches are bearing the brunt of the delays to DRS.”
What will be the environmental impact of your proposed delay?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Monica Lennon
Good morning. The Government is relying heavily on the gateway review, which has been mentioned. The committee has had a submission from the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland, which says that the gateway review and assurance of action plan is weak and has “many shortcomings”, one of the most obvious of which is the
“skewed choice of organisations interviewed.”
The submission goes on:
“Fully 40% of those spoken to were either Scottish Government or under their direct oversight ... and another 40% were producers or retailers. No organisations interviewed were operators of deposit return schemes”.
The association is also concerned that domestic and international experts were not spoken to, and says that that is the equivalent of
“trying to work out whether a vehicle could be fixed without speaking to a single mechanic.”
Is the association wrong?
10:00Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Monica Lennon
Good morning, panel. I want to focus on procurement, which has been mentioned. The committee has heard about some of the challenges and we have had some good briefings on the issue. Will the witnesses talk about some of the positives when it comes to procurement, such as the implementation of the sustainable procurement duty? It sounds like the challenges are to do with skills and knowledge; what needs to happen in that regard? What are your top asks of local government and central Government on that? I will go to Barry McCulloch first.
