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 1226 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Professional Qualifications Bill
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Ivan McKee
Yes. Our ask is that the requirement to seek consent in devolved matters be included in the bill.
On the broader issue of international trade, there have been on-going discussions with the UK Government over a lengthy period. We published—two years ago, I think—our perspective on how Scotland, our Government, our Parliament and the other devolved Administrations should be involved in all aspects and at all stages of any potential international trade agreement. That is a long-standing position of ours, which applies equally to professional qualifications.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Professional Qualifications Bill
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Ivan McKee
Your analysis is correct. Our position is that the UK Government, if it has no desire to impinge on those areas, should make that clear by stating that in bill. It is difficult to see why it would not do so. As I said, we are continuing with our discussions, and we hope that it will change its position to reflect that logical position as you have outlined it.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Professional Qualifications Bill
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Ivan McKee
Yes. That is an important point. On the surface, MRPQ does not sound like the most exciting of subjects, but in reality, as I have indicated, on so many levels, that represents an increasing proportion of our trade. MRPQ affects the ability of Scottish professionals to work internationally, which is hugely important for their aspirations and career development, for business, and for, as you rightly said, the movement of professionally trained individuals to support our health and social care sector and a range of other sectors to which that applies. It directly impinges on our ability to respond to situations that arise. For a devolved Government with the responsibility for doing so, it is important that the power remains within the devolved remit.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Professional Qualifications Bill
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Ivan McKee
I am not aware of the specifics of fee levels. I will defer to one of the officials, who might have more information about the detail and any conversations on the specifics of it they might have had with the devolved regulators. I do not know who is best to come in on that.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Professional Qualifications Bill
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Ivan McKee
They will speak for themselves, but I understand that their concerns are largely about the potential downgrading of standards in pursuit of international trade deals—clearly, that is something to be concerned about—and the UK Government being in a position to make changes that the regulators are not comfortable with.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Professional Qualifications Bill
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Ivan McKee
The 2020 act gives the UK Government the ability to impinge on devolved areas, which is something that we are deeply unhappy about. As we know, power devolved is power retained, so the UK Government can effectively do as it wishes in that regard. The internal market legislation allows the UK Government to do that, but that does not mean that that is a wise thing to do, or that it is in the interests of Scotland for it to do so.
