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 1396 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Regulators
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Ben Macpherson
We would appreciate that, as appropriate; I know that it is a sensitive area.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Ben Macpherson
And the use of secondary legislation gives that flexibility.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Ben Macpherson
Absolutely. I have a final question on charges for single-use items. You talked about the success of the carrier bag charge that was introduced in 2014. That has been an undoubted success environmentally, but also from the point of view of behavioural change.
Last week, it was argued by representatives of the business community that the fact that the money that is raised from the plastic bag charge can be put towards local causes has helped with collegiate buy-in to the policy, from the point of view of both implementation and seeing the benefits. Do you have any comments to make on how the net proceeds from charges for single-use items should be used? As things stand, the bill proposes a different approach from the one that has been taken in relation to the 2014 plastic bag charge.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Ben Macpherson
If no one wants to add to that, I will move on.
It definitely is part of a puzzle and, of course, one advantage of a deposit return scheme is that it helps to reduce contamination. There is not just the challenge of the 60 per cent of materials that go into landfill but that could be recycled; it is also about how we improve the quality of the recyclate that goes into recycling provisions as they are. To me, the puzzle is about deposit return and the considerations in the bill, but it is also about public awareness and cultural change.
Regarding the provisions to put the recycling code on a statutory footing and to enable the setting of local targets, what evidence is there to suggest that taking a statutory approach in those areas will drive up standards? What are the key opportunities in making systems more consistent across the country? How do we drive up standards and make the systems more consistent, and how important would those elements be?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Ben Macpherson
Yes, and it is also about consistency of practice and how it is implemented.
If there is no other feedback on that, I want, finally, to come back to a point already raised by Mr Gulland about our facilities to meet the bill’s requirements and the shared collective aim of reducing waste and increasing recycling. What investment in waste, whether it be in recycling, reuse, redistribution or infrastructure, will be needed to support the bill’s aims? I would be grateful if you could elaborate on what you said earlier, Mr Gulland, because I think that it is really important.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Ben Macpherson
If you could follow up on that, it would be helpful. Your points about inward investment and job creation are absolutely of interest, including the point that having consistency and a uniform position across local authorities on processing would attract such investment.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny and the Scottish Attainment Challenge
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Ben Macpherson
Good morning. The Government is putting in a lot of additional resource to support our young people through these challenging times, whether that is the PEF allocation, which we spoke about earlier, the Scottish child payment or free school meals.
In last week’s evidence session, it was stated that, despite the significant amount of additional resource that has gone into providing free school meals, the funding going to local authorities for that policy has not kept pace with inflation. What are the Government’s thoughts on that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny and the Scottish Attainment Challenge
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Ben Macpherson
You talked about the wide-ranging potential positive impact of free school meals. On how we consider the policy in future, does the Government plan to evaluate the educational and wellbeing effects or, indeed, the impact on child poverty? Is there an intention to evaluate the impact of the universality of the free school meal provision?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny and the Scottish Attainment Challenge
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Ben Macpherson
Indeed, those additional facilities could enable community groups to do other things in the wider community that would help to impact poverty, learning and the wider common good.
For the sake of clarity, are you saying that the evaluation will consider the educational impact, the impact on child poverty and the impact on physical health in the round?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 26 September 2023
Ben Macpherson
I take your point but, in many other instances, secondary legislation has worked effectively and has been scrutinised well. We should learn the lessons as you have articulated them but, to put everything in the bill would be impractical, so it would be good to hear of any specific changes you would like to the bill.
