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 918 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
New Deal for Business
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
Daniel Johnson
That would make it more difficult to appeal a change of RV.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
New Deal for Business
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
Daniel Johnson
I will not ask any more questions, but I should declare an interest as someone who has had to appeal a rateable value decision in the past, so I know how difficult that is. I just want that reflected on the record.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
New Deal for Business
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
Daniel Johnson
Terrific. Thank you very much.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
New Deal for Business
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
Daniel Johnson
To summarise, there has been engagement, but you have yet to see the outcomes. Is that fair?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
New Deal for Business
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
Daniel Johnson
My fellow committee members were giving me grief for asking too many questions previously, so I will put one question to Leon Thompson. To the rest of the panel, I note that one of my takeaways from what Paul Mitchell said is to ask whether we are making it easy. The Government might be talking to you, but does it really understand your members? That is my just my reflection.
Leon, you sit on two really critical groups: on regulatory reform, and on non-domestic rates. First, can you clarify when the regulatory reform group last met? Secondly, our previous panels have asked whether there are clear outcomes, so I would like your reflection on that. Thirdly, on the non-domestic rates group, if it is not discussing the reform of non-domestic rates, what is it discussing, if I may put it like that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
New Deal for Business
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
Daniel Johnson
I will rephrase my question—I just need to remind myself what my train of thought was. Claire Mack, you made a very important point about broad alignment. Sometimes, we view the economy within a portfolio and a silo, but the industry has touch points—in your sector there is the 50GW target and the net zero target for 2050 in the UK, and a different date in Scotland. However, we are still awaiting decisions on projects such as Berwick Bank, which is now at the two-year mark. Do you think that we are taking seriously the alignment that we need, with regard not only to regulations but decision making processes, to meet the objectives and targets that we have set out collectively with industry broadly and your sector in particular?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
New Deal for Business
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
Daniel Johnson
We need to apologise to both Claire Mack and Jane Wood. We could do entire sessions on house building and the need for renewables.
Tony, I was reflecting on what you were saying. I repeat ad infinitum the McKinsey mantra that, “If you can’t measure, you can’t manage,” so I agree with what you said. One thing strikes me, because it reminds me of what I thought when I was running my business. Jane Wood and Claire Mack run great organisations that are an important part of engagement, but sometimes politicians think that if they have engaged with the trade body, they have engaged with the sector. Does the Government, and politicians in the round, need to think about trying to understand individual businesses more? What would you like to see happen? You obviously do not want to meet a politician every day; you want to run your business—
Economy and Fair Work Committee
New Deal for Business
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Daniel Johnson
At the beginning, you questioned whether the policies are in place to focus on investment in Scotland. I would be interested if you could follow that up.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
New Deal for Business
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Daniel Johnson
I have some questions on a different topic, but I find the current thread of questioning interesting. The deputy convener summed it up quite well—it sounds as if the Government is starting to get it but is not there yet. Reflecting on what I have heard over the past 10 minutes or so, I think that you have said that engagement has got better and that some decisions that might be actively damaging to business are being avoided. However, that is not the same thing as having policies in place that promote a healthier economy and promote growth and investment—that is to say, policies that are actually for businesses. There is a difference there. We should surely be seeking not just to engage and have a good dialogue with business, but to put in place policies that are directly focused on improving the business context and business investment.
Is that a fair reflection of the conversation? Perhaps you can start, Sara, because your comments in this space have been most germane.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
New Deal for Business
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Daniel Johnson
To lead into my follow-up question, it strikes me that, while the groups that we are discussing might look at things that are explicitly about business, they—and we—are not asking whether all policy is aligned with our economic policies. Again, we might look at whether the proposals on alcohol advertising were in line with our growth aspirations for the food and drink sector. Another example might be the Berwick Bank decision. We have a very ambitious target on renewables, but we are now approaching the two-year mark for the consenting decisions—which are meant to take a year—for what will be one of the most substantial contributions to meeting that target.
Is there too much of a focus in the regulatory review group on new regulations, rather than on asking whether all our regulation and policy making is aligned with our industrial objectives? Colin, perhaps you can answer first, and I will then open it up to the whole panel.
