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 1882 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
ScotRail
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Monica Lennon
It is good to get a further update on that.
Another issue that needs to be mopped up from last week’s meeting is the no compulsory redundancy policy. Will that just carry over, per the union’s wishes?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
ScotRail
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Monica Lennon
I was interested to hear Bill Reeve’s comment that what the trade unions are saying pretty much aligns with what the public are feeling and saying. Given your engagement with the trade unions, what is your take on their “A Vision for Scotland’s Railways” document? It sets out a number of recommendations. I will not, you will be pleased to hear, run through them all, but they include reducing ticket prices instead of having a fares freeze and offering free rail travel for the under-24s and the over-60s. Are you sympathetic to such recommendations?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
ScotRail
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Monica Lennon
Again, given that we are in a cost of living crisis and given that we know that many people have been priced out of using the trains, it would be good for that work to be accelerated.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
ScotRail
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Monica Lennon
Good morning. I recognise a lot of what has been said about safety, particularly for women. Something that concerned me last year was reports in the media that there has been a consistent trend of girls assaulting other girls on trains, particularly in the west of Scotland, with the British Transport Police describing it as a consistent trend. Minister, what discussions have you had with the BTP in that regard?
Mick Hogg from RMT Scotland was very complimentary last week about his early talks with you, minister. He also talked about taking tougher action on known perpetrators of antisocial behaviour. I do not think that banning young girls from the trains would be the answer—I think that the cohort tends to be between 12 and 16. However, is work going on more widely in schools and through youth engagement to find out what is at the root of that antisocial behaviour, which is difficult for passengers and for staff?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
ScotRail
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Monica Lennon
So, there is a willingness to put into practice a zero tolerance approach towards any antisocial behaviour or criminality on the railways. Will the scoping exercise on the potential for legislation form part of the work on the national conversation?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
ScotRail
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Monica Lennon
I would like to return to the issue of trade union engagement. We had a useful session last week, and the minister has already made several references to her many meetings with trade unions. It sounds like the situation is quite positive.
This might have been superseded, but, last week, we heard concerns from the Transport Salaried Staffs Association about the offer of union representation at board level in the new ScotRail. It was not clear whether that would be a trade union or staff representative place or whether it would be just a regular board member place. Has that been bottomed out?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
ScotRail
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Monica Lennon
But is it your position that you are not in favour of compulsory redundancies on our railways?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
ScotRail
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Monica Lennon
The good news is that we have already demonstrated in Scotland the affordability of free bus travel for the under-22s and others, and there is a wider campaign to extend that. The minister’s point about making sure that public transport is joined up and integrated is important.
My final question is on the fair fares review. What is the timescale for that, and how can the public engage with it?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Covid-19 Update
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Monica Lennon
It has been more than 140 days since NHS Lanarkshire hit the panic button and declared a code black. None of us wants that to be the new normal for NHS patients and workers. Can the First Minister reassure my constituents and people across Scotland that the test and protect transition plan will not make achieving NHS recovery any harder? Can she indicate when NHS Lanarkshire is expected to de-escalate from code black?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Climate Emergency
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Monica Lennon
Will the member take an intervention?
