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 1001 contributions
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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 1 October 2024
Daniel Johnson
Thank you for unmuting me, convener. The minister will be relieved to hear that the committee requires me to ask my questions from a cupboard in an undisclosed location.
My first question relates to reports from the Scottish Law Commission, to which the minister referred in his opening remarks with regard to the introduction of the Judicial Factors (Scotland) Bill. As he will be aware, the Government set out in the programme for government its intention to introduce a new leases (automatic continuation etc) (Scotland) bill. What is the timescale for the introduction of that bill? What was the basis for choosing to bring forward that bill from among those issues covered in the SLC’s reports?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 1 October 2024
Daniel Johnson
I thank the minister for that answer; we have all the more reason to look forward to Christmas now.
Can the minister elaborate on the degree to which the proposed bill meets the criteria and objectives that are set out in the relevant Scottish Law Commission report?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Daniel Johnson
I will ask a very narrow question and then I have some questions that follow on from it. Presumably, the Government thinks that this will be a substantial and permanent change and one that will take land reform on a particular direction of travel. Would that be a fair thing to surmise?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Daniel Johnson
You set out the need for consultation and flexibility. Can you explain why primary legislation would frustrate that? The process might take longer, but fundamentally it would still enable you to make changes. You have said that there is a general obligation on the Government to consult, but the degree to which we have an open and transparent consultation process is enhanced by Parliament. Indeed, it is Parliament’s primary function. Why do you think that Parliament is not the right place for considering future changes or undertaking the consultation that might be required on such changes?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Daniel Johnson
I just ask you to acknowledge that, although many of the instruments would be introduced under the affirmative procedure, that is not the same as introducing primary legislation, primarily because it is less likely that evidence will be taken. More important, the ability for Parliament to amend is obviously not there at all. Do you acknowledge that that is a pretty big difference between primary legislation and the affirmative procedure?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Daniel Johnson
It is in our briefing notes. I am just noting that.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Daniel Johnson
We have identified three particular areas in relation to powers to change the fundamental concepts of the bill, but this theme probably extends to some other areas that colleagues have already mentioned. In particular, sections 1(4), 2(4) and 4(2) essentially give the Government powers to alter quite fundamental concepts, such as who would be in scope to exercise the right to buy and the requirements around consultation, which could impact the timelines and even who could exercise those powers.
Will you explain why it is necessary to leave such fundamental concepts open in the primary legislation and to leave those powers to secondary legislation?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Daniel Johnson
Given that, and given the wide flexibility—in your own words, it is flexible—is there not a risk that it almost lays open the possibility for the reverse to happen? Obviously, this is a democracy, and Administrations change. What if, hypothetically, the monopolist and large landowners party were to come to power in 10 years’ time? What would prevent it from using these provisions to bring about effects that were entirely contrary to the intent of the legislation as you have presented it?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Daniel Johnson
Obviously, though, they cannot amend.
In your previous answers, you said that, in some areas, you are just bringing powers into line with other bits of legislation. Other than for reasons of consistency with older pieces of legislation, can you set out the rationale for bringing those powers into line and tell us whether there has been any impact assessment or analysis of whether they were appropriate to begin with? After all, the previous legislation could have got the balance wrong.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Daniel Johnson
I have one final question. We are seeing a significant number of framework bills that have a broadly stated intention but in which the detail is largely left to secondary legislation. The rationale of co-design is often given.
It is absolutely right that the Government seeks to design legislation with as broad a range of stakeholders as possible—that makes sense. I have one simple question: why is it necessary to do that co-design following or in conjunction with legislation, rather than doing it beforehand and baking it into the legislation? In that way, the Parliament could consider the full suite and the finished article, rather than hope that the Government does the right kind of consultation and introduces the right kind of secondary legislation.
