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
Air Quality
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Monica Lennon
I am happy to leave it there, convener. With respect, though, I was merely seeking to illustrate that, while we are putting in place important policies such as LEZs and wanting the public to understand why we are doing so, the loss of bus services at the same time is literally driving people into their cars, and that is having an impact on other policies that Transport Scotland has a key role in, such as reducing car kilometres by 20 per cent by the end of the decade. Maybe Vincent McInally cannot speak to that matter, but other colleagues certainly can.
I just wanted to bring a bit of reality to the discussion. I know that this evidence session is not about bus policy, but the fact is that, if people cannot access bus services to get to where they need to be, it will have an impact on air quality—in my humble opinion.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Monica Lennon
Good morning. I am interested in exploring ESS’s key findings concerning oversight of the review and reporting on local air quality management. Do you have a view on the adequacy of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s current enforcement powers and on how well they are being used?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Monica Lennon
You are satisfied that there are powers that SEPA could be using. There are existing powers, but they might not be being used as often or as well as they should be. Do you have a view on why that is the case? Has there been an assessment of that? Have you had discussions with people at SEPA about any constraints or barriers that they face?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Monica Lennon
Good morning. I do not know how much you caught of the earlier discussion with ESS, but we basically heard the view that SEPA should be using existing powers more effectively. What is your assessment of the reason for the lack of enforcement action by SEPA with regard to insufficient progress by local authorities in meeting local air quality management duties? Can you help to explain that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Monica Lennon
It is just because LEZs have been brought up. I am always reluctant to focus on very local examples, but I think that what I am going to talk about provides an important illustration for the national picture.
As colleagues might know, I am very concerned about the loss of our local bus service—the X1 express bus from Hamilton to Glasgow. It has forced people into their cars; they do not want to use them, but they have been left with no choice. That also includes people trying to get to hospital appointments at Glasgow royal infirmary.
Perhaps Vincent McInally can respond from a Transport Scotland perspective, because I am not bringing this up for political reasons. What I am saying is that we need to look at LEZs—of course we do—but in a joined-up way with other policies and the reality on the ground. My question is: what is being done to look at the fact that we cannot make that sort of express bus service work for a major town centre such as that in Hamilton? It is not unique in losing bus services; indeed, people have come to this committee and talked about bus deserts emerging in Scotland. What is being done to monitor impacts in terms of emissions and air quality? Since the service was removed, more people are using their cars to get to work, college or university, to shop, to meet friends or to go to hospital appointments. Has any assessment been made of that, not just in Hamilton but in other areas that have lost such key bus services? I think that we all want to make sure that we have that joined-up view.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 18 April 2023
Monica Lennon
I thank the panel for their evidence, which has been very interesting. The written submission that we received from the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland highlights the concept of clean air being a component of the human right to healthy environments and it signals opportunities in Scotland’s forthcoming human rights bill. I am keen to hear any views on that. I see Gavin Thomson nodding, so I will come to him first.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 18 April 2023
Monica Lennon
I am keen to go back to the point about equalities, but I will bring in Dr Fuller first.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 18 April 2023
Monica Lennon
I had a couple of questions for Paul White, but I know that there is no time left. With your permission, convener, perhaps we could write to Paul with those questions.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 18 April 2023
Monica Lennon
Okay. I am interested in the £500 million bus infrastructure fund that was announced about three years ago and the work to improve bus journey time reliability, particularly around the M8 in the Glasgow area. It looks like the business plan and design development are taking a few years, although I know that there has been Covid. Do you have any insight, Paul, into how important that work is for encouraging people to leave their cars behind and get on the bus?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 18 April 2023
Monica Lennon
That is fine. Thank you. I am not upset. [Laughter.]
