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 1523 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Michelle Thomson
But this committee will not have the chance to scrutinise that legislation. We are gathered as MSPs because—I think that this is fair to say—all of us have some background or experience in finance. I do not think that any of us would claim to be experts, but we have some experience, and we have been selected to represent that. Once legislation goes to general committees, we lose that opportunity.
If we are now agreed that, given that this is a framework bill, we cannot have the confidence that we need in the FM but that there will be further scrutiny, do you share my concerns that that further scrutiny will be much wider? The focus of secondary legislation, by its very definition, will not be exclusively on the costs, although they might be involved. Do you have any worries that that will lead to less control over costs as we go through the parliamentary processes?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Michelle Thomson
From the FM.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Michelle Thomson
For the avoidance of doubt, in giving 10, you are saying that the costs that are set out in the FM will be the final costs to the Scottish Government and to taxpayers of implementing the bill’s provisions.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Michelle Thomson
You are describing a benefit, not a cost.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Michelle Thomson
Good morning. Two weeks ago, I asked the witnesses what number, on a scale of zero to 10, where zero is no confidence and 10 is complete confidence, they would give for their confidence in the FM. I ask the same question to you, minister: what number between zero and 10 would you give for your confidence in the FM?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Michelle Thomson
Thank you.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Michelle Thomson
Thank you.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Michelle Thomson
I understand that. It is basically a phased approach. I saw such an approach a multitude of times in my previous life, and I understand how it works, but I return to the point that we are the finance committee. After you go away today, that is it—unless we ask you to come back with an updated financial memorandum, the matter is away from the committee that has responsibility for ensuring that the costs are understood.
Given that we agree that you are taking a phased approach, how many meetings have you had with the Deputy First Minister to outline the fact that, as we go from year to year, we cannot have any proper sense of what the costs are until we reach a particular point? Does she, in her capacity as finance secretary as well as Deputy First Minister, know that, for the next few years, she will have no idea of the costs of this bill, which we can add to those of the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill and the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill? If I were her, I would be quite nervous about that, because, if I were in charge of controlling the costs, I would want to know, or have a good sense of, what was coming down the track. How many meetings have you had with her?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Michelle Thomson
I absolutely understand that. You are describing an enabling bill—you used the term “framework bill”—and strategic-level costs. I get all of that.
I have a last wee question. How do you know that we will get value for money?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Michelle Thomson
COSLA told the committee that costs for
“family support, secure transport costs, and the additional administration and managerial time ... required to support”—[Official Report, Education, Children and Young People Committee, 25 October 2023; c 18.]
the children’s hearings process were all excluded from the financial memorandum. Can you update us today with estimated costings for those?
