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 2004 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Inshore Fisheries Management Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Emma Harper
You have already said that you are working with ICES in Copenhagen and SAMS to support data collection and data management.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Inshore Fisheries Management Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Emma Harper
I am hearing all these acronyms, which I am still trying to get my head around—RIFGs, IFMI and SSMOs. I am interested to know, as we are developing the processes of inshore fisheries management, whether new primary legislation will have to be created or we will manage the new inshore fisheries programme with existing legislation.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Inshore Fisheries Management Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Emma Harper
Good morning. In relation to the 313 FOI requests, as a member of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, I hear about FOI requests for the health service, which are frustrating for staff, because answering them diverts them from providing patient care and clinical care. I understand that.
Do you categorise FOI requests? Are they put into groups to make it easier to respond to them? Is it individuals who ask for information? How do you manage the resources that are needed to respond to freedom of information requests?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Inshore Fisheries Management Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Emma Harper
You have touched on finance, funding and resources in relation to making improvements through the inshore fisheries management programme. Will part of that work involve exploring whether you need increased funding to implement the programme or even changes to regional governance?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Inshore Fisheries Management Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Emma Harper
It is kind of a no-brainer—if there is a requirement to do more work, to expand work or to implement regional-based approaches, more resources will be required.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Emma Harper
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has carried out an assessment of the economic impact on Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders of the South of Scotland Enterprise agency, since its inception in 2019. (S6O-04287)
Meeting of the Parliament
Medication Assisted Treatment Standards
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Emma Harper
In November, my office took part in naloxone training with the professional, diligent and caring specialist addictions nurse Ruth McCall. The more people who are trained in the use of naloxone, the quicker we will be able to address the issue and reduce the associated stigma. Can the cabinet secretary say more about the uptake of naloxone training across Scotland, especially in rural areas such as Dumfries and Galloway? What further action is being taken to reduce stigma?
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Emma Harper
It is clear that SOSE has had an important impact across Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders, with its teams working hard to support and grow local businesses as well as supporting communities. Can the Deputy First Minister comment on what conversations have been had regarding projects that will attract business and, in particular, young people to the region to grow the local economy?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Emma Harper
I have a couple of questions about eligibility criteria and the definition of “terminal illness”. I know that a very similar bill is going through the United Kingdom Parliament at the moment and want to explore the language of terminal illness in Scotland and England. You said that someone must be terminally ill and in the end stage of their illness to be eligible. Concerns have been raised that that is not only about people with a cancer diagnosis but might apply to someone who has a terminal illness such as motor neurone disease or Parkinson’s. People also might be unable to recover from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, end-stage renal failure or cardiovascular disease, which can be really debilitating. Please give us an overview of the definition of “terminal illness” and how that relates to the bill.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Emma Harper
I will pick up on the duty to refer. Let us say that I am a carer looking after somebody who is at the end of their life in their home, and I am a conscientious objector, and the person I am looking after at the end of their life says, “Okay, that is it—I am done. I want to go down the assisted dying pathway.” How do we support the conscientious objector who is a carer to refer on? Do they just keep their mouth shut, or do we require them to refer? Would it be part of secondary guidance, education and legislation to require them to refer, because this is about the human right of choice at the end of life?
