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 1207 contributions
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Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2025
Rona Mackay
Thankfully, we can do that.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2025
Rona Mackay
Thank you. Do you wish to add anything, Dr McKerrell?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2025
Rona Mackay
Councillors are subject to that rule, are they not? I cannot remember how many times they must attend in the year.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2025
Rona Mackay
I will leave it there, then. Thank you.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2025
Rona Mackay
That is right.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2025
Rona Mackay
Thank you very much.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2025
Rona Mackay
Good morning. I have questions about non-attendance and the criteria for disqualification. There is clearly a big difference between being disqualified for misconduct and receiving a custodial sentence.
Professor Clark, in your submission, you say:
“Physical non-attendance at least once in 180 days seems like a low bar for an MSP to meet”.
and that
“Consideration of changing and updating the Code of Conduct to deal with”
that
“would seem to avoid the need for ... legislation”.
Is the bill too open about what criteria are needed in that regard? I am thinking about a situation involving someone’s physical or mental health, which is very different from somebody having committed an offence or misconduct. Should the bill set out exactly what the criteria for non-attendance should be?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2025
Rona Mackay
The other issue is whether the bill provides enough safeguards when it comes to confidentiality and the privacy of MSPs who might have complex reasons for not being there, which perhaps brings us back to the question whether those provisions should be in the bill at all. I sense that you are all of a similar mind about who judges that, but what are the criteria and who judges whether that person should be disqualified?
Obviously, it is clear cut in other situations that involve misconduct, custodial sentences and so on. However, when somebody is absent, who judges whether they are at it? That is problematic. I do not think that there is a clear answer to that, but it should perhaps be looked at and defined a little more clearly in the bill.
I am sensing that none of you has a clear answer to that.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2025
Rona Mackay
Juliet Swann mentioned caring responsibilities, which are often a reason why elected members cannot attend. I would like to hear your thoughts on that, Annabel Mullin. Also, does the bill give enough weight to privacy and the confidentiality of a person’s personal circumstances?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2025
Rona Mackay
It begs the wider question of whether that element is a fit for the bill. There is certainly a precedent with councillors; a law about their attendance already exists. However, now that we have moved on to a more hybrid approach to working, a closer look is needed as to whether attendance would fit in the bill and whether it would possibly be an invasion of a person’s rights to say, “You’ve not been here.” If we put to one side ill health, mental health and caring responsibilities, there are a myriad of other reasons that could prevent them from attending.
