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 1124 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 22 February 2022
Jenny Gilruth
The guidance has not yet been produced; it will be produced once the Scottish statutory instrument is—as, I hope, it will be—passed by the committee. It is dependent on that.
On the figure that Mr Kerr is looking for, no such figure has been identified, at this time. It is for local authorities to carry out the modelling and, essentially, to look at their own local circumstances. It is not for me to direct them—the power is for local authorities to use and depends on their local circumstances.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 22 February 2022
Jenny Gilruth
I do not think that I said that work has not started. That is not accurate. We plan to publish guidance in the first half of 2022, if the Parliament does not annul the regulations. In our guidance for local authorities, we will outline the themes that emerged from the public consultation, which was undertaken to inform the regulations and guidance. That will include issues that were outwith the scope of the regulations but that local authorities might want to look at in their consultations. The guidance will also include reference to the support that is already available to local authorities in existing guidance on best practice in their consultations.
12:30Before I took an intervention from Mr Kerr, I mentioned the climate change emergency, and it is important that we link back to that. All the parties in the Parliament supported the ambitious and legally binding emissions reduction targets in the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019. Workplace parking licensing schemes have the potential to encourage the use of more sustainable travel while also raising revenue that will be used to improve public and sustainable transport. That is the key point that Mark Ruskell made. Now is the time to support the climate change legislation with real actions and not just words.
We have heard much today about the Nottingham example. I again make the point that it is the only scheme in operation in the United Kingdom. I point to the positive outcomes that were outlined in evidence to the committee’s predecessor by Nottingham City Council, which is a Labour-run council. Of course, Nottingham has among the highest public transport use in the country, and there has been an associated fall of 40 million car miles over the past 15 years. The revenue from the workplace parking levy has supported the expansion of Nottingham’s successful tram system, which I mentioned. Nottingham has also made grants available to support employers to implement sustainable transport measures such as cycle parking. Again, that is a hugely significant investment.
I am pleased that the Government has introduced the regulations so that local authorities in Scotland can make use of the new discretionary powers that the Parliament provided to them. I do not support Graham Simpson’s motion to annul the regulations, which are technical and necessary in order for workplace parking licensing schemes to be implemented effectively and transparently. I urge Mr Simpson to withdraw his motion. If he does not do so, I urge members of the committee to oppose it.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 22 February 2022
Jenny Gilruth
No—I would like to make some progress.
As for the concerns that have been raised about the impacts on different types of businesses and workers, they will be for local authorities to consider, consult on and assess. The 2019 act gives authorities the power to shape their own schemes by specifying, for example, the time of day when they will apply. That is actually quite important. Monica Lennon referred to vulnerable workers, and we need to look at what types of workers are working at which times of day—for example, women who might be working in night-time industries, hospitality and so on—geographical boundaries and local exemptions to ensure that councils have the flexibility and discretion to support positive outcomes. As the committee heard two weeks ago in my response to Ms Hyslop, two or more local authorities might want to work together to create their own scheme.
We have skirted around the climate change emergency today, but I do want to come back to it.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 22 February 2022
Jenny Gilruth
On the first point, I make it very clear that the delay related to resource in Government. We had to redirect vast swathes of civil servants because they had to deal with the emergency legislation that, as the member will recall, we had to pass back in 2020, not because this was a bad idea.
I am going back to my previous role for a moment but, on the issue of businesses and whether this is the right time to introduce the regulations, Mr Simpson will recall that the UK Government decided not to extend the transition period during the worst excesses of the pandemic and instead ploughed ahead with a hard Brexit, which impacted on and devastated many businesses across Scotland. I therefore find it quite difficult to take lessons from the Conservatives on what would be the right time to introduce legislation such as this that will have an impact on businesses.
To some extent, the Conservatives have hidden behind Covid with regard to some of the impacts of Brexit, and I very much hope that they are not suggesting that we hide behind Covid with regard to the climate emergency. We have heard from Mr Ruskell about the need for urgency on this matter. We have to get on, and the workplace parking levy is a way of working with local authorities to achieve our climate change ambitions.
