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 1112 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Bill
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Liam Kerr
It follows on from the deputy convener’s question and takes you back to what I asked at the start, cabinet secretary. We talked about looking to change from a requirement merely to consult the Scottish ministers to one to seek their consent. I think that I heard that that would be the more usual and, perhaps, more appropriate way to go. If that is right, do you have a view on how, given the number of times that that comes up in the process, we, you or the UK Government could identify such issues at an earlier stage of the drafting so that we do not get to this point six months on, say, from when the matter is initially raised but, by this stage, we are arguing about more substantive matters, such as those that you detailed?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Liam Kerr
On that point about the public and private investment, a written response to the convener’s letter of 10 November states that the Scottish Government intends to
“deliver £60m of public and private investment to at least double the size of Scotland’s public charging network”
as you discussed. How much of that £60 million do you expect to come from public sector investment, which budget line do you expect it to come from and over what period?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Liam Kerr
I have a couple of questions on electric vehicle charging.
The Climate Change Committee considers that we need 30,000 public EV charging points in Scotland by 2030. We currently have fewer than 3,000, I think. Your written evidence to the committee confirmed that you do not have a target for the installation of EV charge points—certainly, not a target of the 30,000 that we understand that we will require. Could the lack of a target have a negative impact on your ability to set budgets for installation and to plan and deliver on a comprehensive roll-out?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Liam Kerr
I understand. I am grateful.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Liam Kerr
I am grateful for that response. Can you help me to fully understand that? There was an exercise that looked across the portfolios for, let us say, underspends—that is my word and you will correct me if it is not the appropriate one—and then moved that money from those various budget lines into the £60.9 million budget for the ferries. Is that a fair reflection of what you said?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Liam Kerr
I understand. Thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change Committee’s Review of Scottish Emissions Targets and Progress Report 2022
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Liam Kerr
I will stay with taking people and industry along on the journey.
Professor Bell talked earlier of diet changes, which echoes the COP15 biodiversity conference—protecting nature is about protecting food. The Climate Change Committee makes recommendations on diet change and encourages a move away from meat and poultry of 20 per cent by 2030. NFU Scotland would counter that that could have a negative impact not only on farmers and the economy but, crucially, on food security as well as increasing reliance on imports.
Lord Deben, have you assessed the environmental cost of greater reliance on imported food over locally sourced food? Is there a danger that, in trying to achieve its targets, the Government perhaps unwittingly sacrifices food security, livelihoods and, potentially—given import emissions—the environment?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change Committee’s Review of Scottish Emissions Targets and Progress Report 2022
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Liam Kerr
I will turn to agriculture and land use. The climate change plan update aims to reduce emissions from agriculture by around 28 per cent between 2020 and 2030. The Climate Change Committee says that it is unclear how that can be achieved. We also note that the recent agricultural bill consultation appeared to lack detail. If we assume that new policies will not be in place until 2024 and that new practices, particularly in that sector, will take time to implement, is it too late to achieve the target?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change Committee’s Review of Scottish Emissions Targets and Progress Report 2022
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Liam Kerr
Lord Deben, you note in your report that
“It is currently very difficult to monitor progress against the necessary measures for decarbonising the buildings sector due to a lack of adequate and up-to-date data.”
Would you have expected data collection mechanisms to be in place already? In your experience, which mechanisms could or should be introduced to monitor and support delivery?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change Committee’s Review of Scottish Emissions Targets and Progress Report 2022
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Liam Kerr
I have a further question on the heat in buildings strategy. We heard that the Scottish Government is putting £1.8 billion towards that over, I think, five years. We also know that the cost of achieving the heat in buildings strategy is £33 billion. That figure is now dated. I asked a parliamentary question about what it is now with inflation and answer came there none.
Is £1.8 billion sufficient? Do you get any sense of whether there is a concrete plan that will leverage £33 billion-plus from that £1.8 billion contribution?
