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 1505 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
City Region and Regional Growth Deals
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Michelle Thomson
Okay, thank you.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
City Region and Regional Growth Deals
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Michelle Thomson
That is a clear answer, albeit a technical one.
The point that I was making, which is perhaps more one for the Deputy First Minister, is that, despite the fact that the green book has been looked at—I accept what Anne-Marie Martin said about that—it seems somewhat ironic for the green book to be looked at with a view to removing the relentless focus on London and the south-east, only for there then to be a relentless focus, potentially, on the Oxford to Cambridge corridor without any awareness of the fact that there was already excellence in the extreme at the University of Edinburgh, to which money had been committed. That is potentially now back on the table, although the situation remains uncertain.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 29 January 2025
Michelle Thomson
Good morning. Thank you for joining us.
I want to follow up on one wee thread off the back of what has been said. David Robertson, you mentioned a credit check. Can you remind me of the nature of that, because that will frame my question, and I did not quite hear all of what was said?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 29 January 2025
Michelle Thomson
Okay. What tests have you done on the possibility of fraud? I heard what you said about checking, but, if that checking is predicated on an SC number that was set up through Companies House, the problem is that it is extremely easy to set up a fraudulent body via Companies House. There are umpteen examples of Scottish limited partnerships, in particular, and no checking is done via Companies House.
I appreciate that it is a long shot, because, as one might ask, why would somebody go to the trouble of setting up and then putting in place a fraudulent transaction on the registers? I just wanted to explore how much you have tracked that through, because, in and of itself, an SC number, as well as the other associated detail, does not mean that someone is acting in good faith.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 29 January 2025
Michelle Thomson
There are a number of different scenarios. I am just thinking about Scottish limited partnerships, which have been written about a great deal. They are used for a variety of mechanisms, but the whole point of them is that they give the impression of probity, because you can see them registered in Companies House and it is a brand: Scottish limited partnership. Part of the issue is that there is a footprint giving the illusion of legitimate activity when, actually, it might not be at all legitimate.
I am not certain that you have considered all the potential fraudulent situations if there has been a complete lack of testing by Companies House. The record has shown us that the volume of fraudulent companies is alarmingly large; there is ample evidence of that. For example, hundreds of Scottish limited partnerships have been registered to addresses in Dumbarton. You might ask why someone would go to the trouble of doing that, but that is the essence of fraud. Somebody did that, but for reasons that we have not yet thought of.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 29 January 2025
Michelle Thomson
I suppose that that leads us in a neat circle back to the opening point about the veracity of the registers in general terms—a lot of our questions have been about that—and about the rules and regulations. There might well be scenarios—in fact, a lot of them have come out this morning—that have not necessarily been thought about in great detail.
I will leave it there, but if you have any further thoughts, feel free to write to us.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 29 January 2025
Michelle Thomson
It would not do any harm to wait a week, because a lot of detail has been brought out. That is my personal view; I am sure that other members will have their own views.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 29 January 2025
Michelle Thomson
On whom do you perform the credit check in that role play?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
City Region and Regional Growth Deals
Meeting date: 22 January 2025
Michelle Thomson
You have taken another opportunity to put further commentary very effectively on the record. On the point that I asked about, aside from capacity—which, of course, is linked to funding—is there more that you feel you could have done if all things had been equal? I ask that because many of our evidence sessions are starting to feel like groundhog day for me, as we hear similar messages, and there is a commonly held understanding at the front of people’s heads that we need to do this, but something always seems to happen. That means that key groupings—not just women in business but small and medium-sized enterprises—are not necessarily thought of in the way that they should have been thought of. Is it simply an issue of capacity and funding, or is it more systemic?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
City Region and Regional Growth Deals
Meeting date: 22 January 2025
Michelle Thomson
Given that, and your earlier commentary about how you do not feel that the perspective of SMEs is understood—you have given various examples—what, then, is the issue? Has there been an issue with how representation has been given? Indeed, you have clarified that for me—thank you. Have SMEs not been listened to? Is it more complex than that?
