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 793 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition
Meeting date: 7 December 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I am very interested in the potential of hydrogen.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition
Meeting date: 7 December 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Therefore, meeting climate change targets is not, as far as you are aware or concerned, a reason to not go ahead with those projects.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition
Meeting date: 7 December 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Your point about the Acorn project has been made previously by your colleagues. It sounds as though there will be a shortage not of jobs but of people.
Do you, as a former Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science, think that the education system as a whole, from schooling through to further and higher education, is geared up enough to ensure that young people go on pathways to new emerging technologies and other sectors? Are you confident that we will be able to deliver at least part of what we need through the right education system that is ready to provide that supply of people?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition
Meeting date: 7 December 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
That is helpful—thank you.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition
Meeting date: 7 December 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
That is the production of hydrogen, but where will it be used? For example, can it be used in domestic boilers for heating? What would it require to do that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition Commission
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
We might want to keep an eye on that.
I think that we are all agreed, or we all understand, the need for just transition around energy, because of the impact on key areas of the energy sector from the changes and how the sector might shift in Scotland. However, we have mentioned other sectors such as housing and agriculture. I am a partner in a farming business, and I can see the changes that are already being made. In housing, we need to build more houses and we need to provide more homes for people. In agriculture, we have spent many years incorporating environmental issues in farming practices, but we now see food prices increasing and pressure on supply. How will those perhaps conflicting interests impact on the work to deliver a just transition and on your work and recommendations?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition Commission
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
The issue of who has inherited trees is probably less of a concern in places such as Orkney and Shetland, where I am from. I am sure that the local sectors would welcome a visit, because those are important issues. I am also interested in a freedom of information request to find out about that unparliamentary language, so that we get a good honest appraisal of your thoughts. [Laughter.] However, I will leave it there for now. Thank you.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition Commission
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Good morning to both the witnesses. Before I go on to my main points, I want to ask about fuel poverty and the issues around owner-occupiers and social housing. I represent the Highlands and Islands, which includes Lewis, which you mentioned, as well as Orkney and Shetland, where there are high levels of fuel poverty. As you mentioned, there is frustration about the huge amount of renewables generation in those areas.
One issue that has come up in my time as an MSP has been a lack of clarity on how owner-occupiers can access support. There are lots of different pots, and there are issues related to income and health, the age of houses and all sorts of other things. Particularly in relation to fuel poverty but perhaps other areas, how important will it be to have clarity, a streamlined process, easy access to the right information and good signposting if we are to meet the targets?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition Commission
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Another area in which there have been concerns is the involvement of small and medium-sized enterprises, and particularly how we engage with small businesses. Will you talk more about concerns that you have about that? How important is that issue?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition Commission
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Historically, with areas such as energy efficiency measures, the focus has tended to be on larger organisations that can deliver projects or initiatives Scotland-wide. However, obviously, encouraging small businesses to play their role in reducing energy use and the like will be key to meeting some of the wider targets. How do we encourage small businesses to be involved? How can they be engaged and play a role in that?
