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 1893 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Monica Lennon
Thank you. Silke Isbrand, do you want to add anything?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Monica Lennon
No, I am happy to leave it.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Monica Lennon
Thank you. Does anyone else want to add to that? I have a brief supplementary question, but are there any other points on public procurement? I know that lots of challenges arise, particularly with regard to behavioural change, when we start to think of all of the aims of a circular economy. Could, say, procurement be a useful tool for local government? Is there anything else you want to add in that respect? Maybe Rhona Gunn can contribute, but if not, that is fine. I did not want to miss out anyone online—it is sometimes hard to see if people want to answer.
I will move on to the disposal of unsold goods. Have you seen in your provision of services to businesses any evidence of unsold goods being disposed of? Perhaps Stephen Freeland or Drew Murdoch could come in at this point.
Meeting of the Parliament
Situation in the Middle East
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Monica Lennon
The point that I wanted to make to Dr Gulhane, if he had given way, was that, regrettably, what the Conservative amendment would delete from the motion is the line that says
“that the killing of innocent civilians in Gaza, including women and children who have been besieged by Israeli forces, must stop”.
It is regrettable that the Conservatives would delete that from the motion. Does Keith Brown agree that everyone in here, on behalf of ourselves and the people of Scotland, should be able to say, “Stop the killing of innocent civilians right now”?
Meeting of the Parliament
Decision Time
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Monica Lennon
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I was unable to connect. I would have voted no.
Meeting of the Parliament
Decision Time
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Monica Lennon
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I could not connect. I would have voted yes.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Monica Lennon
My point was about amending the bill. Do we have an opportunity to be more proactive and put a duty on local authorities?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Monica Lennon
Should there be mandatory targets?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Monica Lennon
Clearly, there is an opportunity for members’ bills to complement the circular economy bill, so good luck to Murdo Fraser. I think that colleagues are aware of my interest in ecocide prevention.
We have talked about small-scale fly-tipping. As MSPs, we all know about its impact on our communities. However, as Murdo Fraser was saying, the major challenge is organised crime gangs. The “Disclosure” programme on the BBC, which I think we mentioned more than a year ago to the previous cabinet secretary, Michael Matheson, set out how thousands of tonnes of waste is being buried illegally across Scotland right now.
Just a few weeks ago, SEPA put out a press release about the scourge of illegal sites for end-of-life vehicles. SEPA believes that there are more than 100 unauthorised ELV sites across Scotland, hidden in plain sight. We all know about the impact of that. One insider in a criminal network told the “Disclosure” programme that waste was the new drugs and that these waste gangs are also involved in moving around drugs, weapons and other illegal items. SEPA knows about that and has made it a priority, along with the ELV sites, but SEPA does not really seem to have the resources to do anything meaningful about it.
To go back to the circular economy bill, are you concerned about whether SEPA and other regulators will have the resources and capacity to do anything? From what we are hearing about the scale of this, it is an emergency. A litter and fly-tipping emergency has already been declared and SEPA is clearly very concerned but it does not seem to be able to do anything about it. Is that a concern that you share?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Monica Lennon
In its recent press release, SEPA talked about the role of Scotland’s serious organised crime task force and the joint unit for waste crime. I do not know much about the latter, but the public will find that interesting, because there has been a lot of discussion about the need for behaviour changes on the part of individuals and about the possible use of sanctions—or sticks—against individuals at a time when gangs are operating at a national and international level. Even though those gangs are causing havoc in all our communities and destroying the environment, no one is going after them in the way that we need. We sometimes get pushback from the public if they feel that we are going after individuals rather than the big gangs.
