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 1885 contributions
|
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
That is really helpful. Earlier I should have added my thanks to Jim Martin, the outgoing chair, and to Mark Roberts, the staff team and the board for all the amazing work that they have done in the past couple of years.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
Wonderful.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
I am listening with interest, minister, because you are clearly passionate about the opportunities for young people to use the concessionary travel scheme.
You talked about your constituent being able to travel into the city for education purposes. That is a live topic across Scotland right now. Although we all want to be enthusiastic about the potential of the under-22s bus pass, in many local authorities, school bus transport is being cut and, unfortunately, young people have been told that they cannot use their school bus passes on the service buses. Is there potential for more flexibility so that young people who want to and need to use the bus to get to school—for essential purposes—can do that, rather than, as for my young constituents, having to walk almost three miles on unsafe routes to get to secondary school?
Parents are now saying that they will have to start using the car to drive young people to school, which will cause more emissions and poor air quality. Given the levers that you have—including the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, which is older than me, believe it or not—and now that we have a potentially trailblazing young persons bus pass, is it not time to look at all that, to prevent people giving up on public transport and starting to car share using private cars when they do not want to do that? Are you willing to come and speak to some of those young people and their parents in Lanarkshire?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
Okay. Is that more than a couple of weeks?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
It is great that you are new in post, so you can look at things with fresh eyes, but, without telling us what the recommendations are likely to be, do you anticipate that those recommendations will be implemented before the end of the current parliamentary session, or are we talking about things that will happen further into the future?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
Okay. I hope we have not worried lots of people that their bus pass could be under threat—but thank you.
Meeting of the Parliament
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 February 2024
Monica Lennon
I am glad that Clare Haughey mentioned Anne’s law, and I welcome the report’s recommendations. I note that the committee agreed that Anne’s law should be fully implemented as soon as possible to ensure a human rights-based approach to care. Did it consider different options for its implementation, other than in the bill that was before the committee? Across the chamber, there is frustration in that, although we all agree on the need for Anne’s law, it perhaps does not need to be part of this bill. It could be implemented in other ways.
Meeting of the Parliament
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 February 2024
Monica Lennon
I am glad that the minister is giving so much attention to Anne’s law. I know that Anne’s family are listening. Her husband, Campbell Duke, is listening, and her daughter, Natasha, will be listening. It is what they have to say that we all need to listen to.
I appeal to the minister to make time in her diary and that of the Government, between now and stage 2—if that is where we are heading—to listen to families such as Anne’s and so many others, who are not visitors but essential caregivers, and to take nothing off the table. We all agree that Anne’s law should be a reality. It is long overdue, and if there is a quicker and more effective route to that, let us not rule it out.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Monica Lennon
To ask the Scottish Government what action the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service takes to ensure that any information that it receives from pathology service providers is accurate and reliable. (S6O-03127)
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Monica Lennon
I thank the Solicitor General for that response and for clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the Lord Advocate. Her office will be aware that my constituents Ann and Gerry Stark were told repeatedly by the Crown Office and health authorities that all tissue samples of their deceased son, Richard, had been returned to the family, but that was not true. Does the Crown Office accept that the failings in that case should never have happened? Will the law officers take the opportunity to apologise to the family? Can we have more information about the urgent action that was taken since the scandal came to light last year, so that all families, including the Stark family, can have full confidence in the Crown Office when it investigates the sudden and unexplained death of our loved ones?
