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 1235 contributions
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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Building Safety
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Paul McLennan
We can come back to the committee with the number that you asked for in relation to fire safety.
Again, the issue goes back to the discussions that I want to have with UK and Welsh Government officials. What are they doing on that? Rachel Sunderland touched on this, but there are UK, Welsh, Northern Irish and Irish companies that do this work as well. We need to look at the capacity in Scotland, but also at the capacity across the UK. What do we need to do under that four-nations approach to ensure that we all have capacity, given that we will all be looking to do the same things at roughly the same time? We will have those discussions with UK, Welsh and Northern Irish officials to determine what we need to do to look at the issue as a whole. Again, I will be happy to report back on the discussions that we have at that stage.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Building Safety
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Paul McLennan
I will ask Rachel Sunderland to comment on that in a second, but first I will comment on the point that you made at the start of your question. I heard Chris Ashurst talk about the importance of communication even if people can only say, “Here’s where we are” and not what is happening. I will certainly take that away and discuss it with officials.
On the point about political leadership, one of the first meetings that I had as a minister was about the cladding programme and what we could do to take it forward. One of the first meetings that I had—within the first week, I think—was with Homes for Scotland, and we discussed the issue. I am glad that, within a reasonably quick period, we have reached the stage that we have reached and that we continue to move on. We will move on to the SMEs, as I said. We have talked about the need for legislation to try to quicken the pace. In the first two months, I have tried to show that leadership by moving on the agreement and moving on legislation that we require to do that. I am certainly keen to discuss that.
I will meet Chris Ashurst in the near future and I continue to meet Homes for Scotland regularly and keep on top of that programme. I have already mentioned having meetings with the UK and Welsh Governments to take the issue forward. I think that I am showing that political leadership, and I am keen to make sure that I do that not just in the first two or three months but on an on-going basis. As I said, the process will evolve in Scotland and in the UK, but I am really keen to make sure that we give people as much peace of mind as we can and that buildings are as safe as possible. That is the key thing.
I ask Rachel Sunderland to comment on the number of orphan buildings.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Building Safety
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Paul McLennan
Discussions are under way on that. I will bring Rachel in, as she has been undertaking those discussions.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Building Safety
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Paul McLennan
We have reached agreement in principle. There will be on-going dialogue between officials, Homes for Scotland and me, and they will be part of how this will evolve and work in practice. Those discussions will be on-going and regular.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Building Safety
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Paul McLennan
Rachel Sunderland touched on the importance of squeezing out as much information as possible to make sure that we do not get orphan buildings. It is about pushing that as far as we can to find out who the owner of the building is and whether they are responsible for it. As Mr Briggs mentioned, there can be mergers and companies can be bought over. In such cases, where does the responsibility lie?
In looking at the budget that we have, there is an element of expectation that some orphan buildings will become part of that. We have reached an agreement with Homes for Scotland about the buildings that it is responsible for. With regard to the ones that it is not responsible for, we have to look at how we maximise the budget.
The key principle is to try to make sure that we find the owners who are out there. We need to acknowledge that there may be buildings for which we do not have owners but, again, that was part of the process of looking at the budget that was required at the start. That is on-going. At times, it can be difficult until we get into the building and find out what the remediation need is. However, that element is built into the budget.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Building Safety
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Paul McLennan
Is it okay if I make an opening statement?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Building Safety
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Paul McLennan
I think that this is week 9 of my being in post and, in the first week or so, I met Homes for Scotland. Obviously, this is an issue of real importance to me. We have had discussions—I think that it was mentioned this morning that the previous cabinet secretary had been in discussions. There are a few key principles that are important to get across and that, working closely with Homes for Scotland, we have agreed on. One is developer responsibility, and that is being progressed.
Information sharing is another. Among the things that I picked up from today’s earlier discussion at the committee was about communication, which Chris Ashurst mentioned. I would like to take that away and speak to developers and officials about it to make sure that we maximise communication to people. What Chris said about that was very relevant.
There is also the commitment to assess and remediate relevant buildings. That is about the cladding, which the committee has talked about this morning, along with other fire safety defects on buildings. We have talked about how closely we are working with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, which is a key partner. As mentioned, we initially focused on the largest developers, which are members of Homes for Scotland.
Another key thing is that our approach is similar to that of the UK and Welsh Governments. We are in constant dialogue with them on the matter, which is a UK-wide problem, and we have followed their approach. There has been significant progress in the past weeks.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Building Safety
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Paul McLennan
That is probably down to the experience of the buildings that we have had to remediate in the first while. It is all about trying to quicken the pace and ensuring that we have the necessary powers to do that.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Building Safety
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Paul McLennan
I will bring in Stephen Garvin, as he has been discussing that. I heard the earlier discussion about the difficulties, with people being away—one person is in China—and so on.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Building Safety
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Paul McLennan
I know that we will touch on this later, as the committee will want to ask about it, but it is important to look at legislation. That would, in part, be about making sure that we get over that problem. We will touch on that more, and I referred to it in my opening remarks. Part of the reason why we are considering legislation is that the more quickly we can remediate buildings, the better it is for everyone. That issue has been identified and will be part of any legislation, if that is where we move to.
