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 Price Rises
Meeting date: 17 May 2022
Liam Kerr
Cabinet secretary, you said that nuclear generation takes a long time to produce and needs a subsidy. The convener has pointed out the contract for difference regime and its importance. When do you expect the ScotWind programme to be providing 25GW of electricity?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 17 May 2022
Liam Kerr
It certainly will be a difficult conversation.
My next question is for Elaine Waterson. Teresa Bray talked about loan funding, and the Energy Saving Trust delivers the Home Energy Scotland programme for the Scottish Government. Your most recent annual report highlights that interest-free loan funding of £38,500 is available to owners and landlords to help with energy efficiency and installations. In 2021, the number of loans that were given out to properties was just under 1,300. There are around 1.9 million private properties in Scotland, which begs a few questions. Is the Home Energy Scotland funding sufficient, why is take-up so low, and how can it be increased?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Liam Kerr
On a slightly different side of things, after so many failures of new entrants to the market there has been a consolidation of legacy suppliers. That can reduce competition and consumer choice. In your view, how can the UK Government ensure increased competition and innovation with the effect of ensuring value for money and driving decarbonisation and net zero?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Liam Kerr
Minister, on the line of questioning that we have just heard, Chris O’Shea, who is the chief executive officer of British Gas, which is owned by Centrica, said today that a windfall tax would hit investment and push up costs in the longer term. Could the windfall tax that is being proposed result in increased costs to consumers?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Liam Kerr
I am very grateful, minister; I have no further questions.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Liam Kerr
In your opening statement you said that the rise in energy prices was driven by wholesale gas, among other things. Given the current price spike, should marginal generation technology—predominantly gas—continue to set the price, and is there a case for wholesale restructuring of the energy market? If so, what impact could that have on bills, and how quickly?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 10 May 2022
Liam Kerr
The deputy convener talked about transmission charges being higher for generators in Scotland, but does that not simply reflect the reality that demand is concentrated elsewhere, further away from where it is generated; that demand customers pay the overwhelming majority of TNUOS—transmission network use of system—charges; and that, therefore, actually, consumers in Scotland are paying a cheaper rate for their electricity than they otherwise would be if we had the market reforms that the deputy convener has outlined? Can you help the committee to understand that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 10 May 2022
Liam Kerr
In his opening remarks, Neil Lawrence said that wholesale gas prices are volatile and that, as a consequence, consumer bills have risen. The UK Government’s energy security strategy will launch a further oil and gas offshore licensing round with a view to improving energy security and affordability. What impact could there be on prices for domestic and commercial customers if the gas that we need were to be sourced locally rather than imported?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 10 May 2022
Liam Kerr
The deputy convener and Jackie Dunbar asked pertinent questions about the net zero agenda, and I want to explore the issue. Some people are understandably worried that an energy price crisis could undermine our drive to net zero, while others suggest that the transition can be accelerated if we increase the use of domestic gas—which we heard from an earlier panel has about half to a third of the carbon footprint of imported gas—rely more on nuclear generation and continue the current focus of both Scotland’s Governments on, for example, heat in buildings. What is your view? How do this committee and the Parliament ensure that we strike a balance between continuing the transition and considering the cost to consumers?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 3 May 2022
Liam Kerr
I will stick with you for my next question. You said that you are based in the north-east. We rightly talk a great deal about getting people out of cars and on to public transport and/or into electric vehicles using the charging infrastructure that we have heard about this morning. In your view, is that realistic in the more rural areas of Aberdeenshire and similar local authority areas? If not, what are the rural solutions that local authorities need to explore? For example, might local authorities like to see investment in new rail lines and/or the dualling of key roads so that traffic is less polluting and less stop/start, and to ensure that through traffic does not go through town centres, clogging them up for buses, which Paul White is concerned about?
