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 1922 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Monica Lennon
I hope that this is an easy question. We have had your written submission, but are you aware of any change to the instrument’s proposed laying date at Westminster? We believe that the date is 17 October. Is that still the case?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Monica Lennon
Good. You seem to be confident about that, and a discussion has taken place.
Just for the record, given the short timescales involved, which have meant that the committee has had only a short time to consider the notification—roughly 10 or 11 days, instead of the 28 days that are normally available for scrutiny—why was the notification not sent to the committee until Friday 23 September?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Monica Lennon
Thank you for that, minister, and for acknowledging how complex this item is. It is important that the committee gets as much time as possible to examine it.
You have mentioned a combination of factors for the delay, including the death of Queen Elizabeth and the period of national mourning. If we were to make contingency plans for other royal or national events in the future, could we avoid such delays? Clearly, there is a lot of pressure on officials. Could anything be done differently to protect the timetable for scrutiny, which I am sure you will agree is important?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Monica Lennon
I thought that you were getting there.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Monica Lennon
Okay. I have heard that there is a lot of uncertainty. I would like to go back round the panel and ask witnesses for a yes or no answer to my next question, if possible. Do the powers for the secretary of state that are proposed in part 5 of the bill respect the devolution settlement?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Monica Lennon
Lloyd Austin, we already have a written submission from Scottish Environment LINK identifying specific concerns with the bill with regard to the Sewel convention and the possibility of the UK Parliament altering Scottish environmental laws. Do you want to expand on that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Monica Lennon
Thank you. I saw Robbie Calvert nodding part way through that response. I am keen to hear what you think, Robbie.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Monica Lennon
Forgive me, but I am going to interrupt you. I have probably not had enough coffee this morning: when asking my question, I meant to ask about your views in the context of how the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill interacts with devolved policy. That gives the rest of the witnesses a heads-up. Will you drill down into that briefly?
Meeting of the Parliament
Challenge Poverty Week 2022
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Monica Lennon
If I had been able to intervene on Marie McNair, I would have said that I am pleased that Scottish National Party activists have lodged a motion at their party’s conference that says that we should do all that we can to end child hunger by introducing universal free school meals for secondary school pupils. Does Carol Mochan agree that the Government needs to get on and deliver that measure as soon as possible?
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Monica Lennon
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to safeguard patients and staff within NHS Lanarkshire, in light of reports of the national health service board returning its risk level to code black. (S6O-01408)
