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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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Colin Smyth
A report of the committee’s consideration of both draft instruments will be prepared and published. I invite members to delegate responsibility to me, as convener, to agree the committee’s report.
Members indicated agreement.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Colin Smyth
Our next item is consideration of two negative SSIs, the Movable Transactions (Forms) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 and the Movable Transactions (Register of Assignations and Register of Statutory Pledges Rules) (Scotland) Regulations 2024. The committee is invited to note both instruments. Are members happy to do so?
Members indicated agreement.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
City Region and Regional Growth Deals
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Colin Smyth
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the fifth meeting in 2025 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee.
Our first item of business is the final evidence-taking session in our inquiry into city region and regional growth deals. I am pleased to welcome this morning’s panel. Kate Forbes, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Gaelic is joined by Scottish Government officials Kate Bryson, head of east and west of Scotland growth deals; Kimberley Daly, head of Highlands, islands, Edinburgh and south of Scotland growth deals; and Anne-Marie Martin, deputy director for regional economic development.
As always, I ask members and witnesses to keep questions and answers as concise as possible. I invite the Deputy First Minister to make a short opening statement.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
City Region and Regional Growth Deals
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Colin Smyth
I appreciate your explanation on the Glasgow deal.
You reject the evidence from groups that the process seems to have slowed compared with early deals. Cabinet secretary, what is your response to the evidence that we have had that the process is far too lengthy and is holding up deals? I will give an example. The Borderlands inclusive growth deal was signed off by the Government and the business case was approved in early 2023. One particular project has been sitting with the Scottish Government. For the past 18 months, it has been going back and forth, with lots of queries on it. That project is now delayed, and there are issues around rising costs and about various other things.
We are getting feedback that the process is very lengthy and is holding up projects.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
City Region and Regional Growth Deals
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Colin Smyth
The detailed business case was submitted in August 2023. How lengthy is the assessment process, from the signing off of the business case to the final agreement from the Scottish Government? I have read somewhere that it takes 12 weeks, but that one seems to have taken quite a few months.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
City Region and Regional Growth Deals
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Colin Smyth
I might come back to you on the specific example, because the concern was that some of the queries that were asked several months down the road could have been asked at the very start of the interaction.
The cabinet secretary mentioned the Ayrshire growth deal, so it is only appropriate that I bring in Willie Coffey.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Colin Smyth
Our second item of business is further consideration of four Scottish statutory instruments. We have two draft affirmative instruments: the Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Act 2023 Amendment Regulations 2025 and the Registers of Scotland (Fees and Plain Copies) Miscellaneous Amendments Order 2025. We also have two negative instruments: the Moveable Transactions (Forms) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 and the Moveable Transactions (Register of Assignations and Register of Statutory Pledges Rules) (Scotland) Regulations 2024.
Following last week’s meeting, the minister wrote to the committee, which members found incredibly helpful. The minister’s letter of 31 January is included at annex C to paper 3.
I welcome our witnesses: Ivan McKee, the Minister for Public Finance; Camilo Arredondo and Rob McConnell, from the Scottish Government legal directorate; Jill Clark, team leader of the private law unit at the Scottish Government; and David Robertson, policy lead at Registers of Scotland.
This item is an opportunity to further discuss all four instruments with the minister and his officials before moving on to the formal procedure at the next agenda item. There is no need for motions to be moved under this item; that will happen at a later stage.
Although I am keen to hear the minister’s views on the success of Manchester, I ask him to give us a short opening statement about the subordinate legislation that is before us.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Colin Smyth
We will end on that positive point.
There are no further questions from members, so we move to formal consideration of the motion to approve the draft Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Act 2023 Amendment Regulations 2025. I remind members that only they and the minister may take part at this point and I invite the minister to move motion S6M-15910.
Motion moved,
That the Economy and Fair Work Committee recommends that the Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Act 2023 Amendment Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.—[Ivan McKee]
Motion agreed to.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Colin Smyth
That brings us to the end of today’s evidence session. I thank the minister and his officials for joining us.
We now move into private session.
11:32 Meeting continued in private until 12:02.Economy and Fair Work Committee
City Region and Regional Growth Deals
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Colin Smyth
That brings us to the end of the evidence session. Deputy First Minister, thank you and your team for joining us. I suspend the meeting briefly to allow for a change of witnesses.
11:20 Meeting suspended.11:22 On resuming—
