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.
Criathragan Hide all filters
Displaying 1071 contributions
|
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Petroineos Grangemouth
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Neil Gray
To be fair, it was articulated again earlier this morning that the change is about wider macroeconomic conditions, rather than any decision that was made by the Scottish or UK Government, which I assume includes the decisions on the green freeport.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Petroineos Grangemouth
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Neil Gray
Indeed, and that is exactly why we need a transition for the energy that we use. Alongside the environmental and economic issues, the energy security argument for transitioning our energy dependence away from hydrocarbons to renewable energy that we produce and can source here is pretty obvious, and that is why—
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Petroineos Grangemouth
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Neil Gray
The demand will continue. We know and understand that there will be continued demand for some oil and gas products, but those demands will also diminish over time. In the meantime, the decision taken by the joint venture to invest in the import-export terminal means that energy security is maintained, which is a good thing. You will want to explore that with the UK ministers who have responsibility for that.
I understand that it is important to know when a decision will be taken about the refinery, but we have the assurance that, whenever that decision is taken, the import terminal will continue to give us energy security. That is a vital component in all of this.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Petroineos Grangemouth
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Neil Gray
In line with what was said earlier, that is an operational matter for Petroineos, which continues to look at ensuring that it can restart the hydrocracker as quickly and safely as possible.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Petroineos Grangemouth
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Neil Gray
Yes. That is certainly what has been articulated to me and is what was said to the committee earlier.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Petroineos Grangemouth
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Neil Gray
I do not think that anybody should have been particularly surprised by the announcement in itself. Regarding the timing, we were told at the same point as the workforce, so there was certainly an element of surprise there.
We are talking about a century-old refinery that has had issues, where significant interventions have been made in the past and where the joint venture has provided a significant subsidy for a number of years. Therefore, the announcement was not a great surprise to us, and I do not think that it should have been to others.
The important considerations for the Scottish and UK Governments are energy security and the need to ensure that there is continued industrial capacity. We have been working on that with the joint venture and will continue to do so.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Petroineos Grangemouth
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Neil Gray
That work is on-going. With respect, the discussion that we have already had this morning indicated that we are still working with other parties to understand the likely impact of the decision to close the refinery and, importantly, the possible mitigation of the import terminal, and what other possible investments in hydrogen, carbon capture and a potential biorefinery might be made. That work is on-going, and we will continue to publish that as quickly as we can.
An additional consideration here is the fact that the final decision has not yet been taken, though I grant Mr Kerr the point that we will be in a difficult situation with the refinery after 2025. At the moment, my energy is directed at understanding what will be important for the joint venture in making the decision on when the refinery will close, and what, if anything, we can do to assist with the extension of the refinery.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Petroineos Grangemouth
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Neil Gray
We continue to work with partners on the Grangemouth future industry board and we continue to have discussions with the UK Government on those areas. We will continue to work on a just transition plan that will consider and articulate some of those areas. It will ensure that we are giving comfort to the communities and the people who are central to all of this that future job opportunities, future industrial capacity and a just transition can be achieved for the area.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Petroineos Grangemouth
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Neil Gray
We will be, yes. The responsibility goes wider than the Scottish Government; it also has a UK Government element to it. We need to work with all parties involved to ensure that we are coming up with the information that we need to take decisions that we need to take around, for instance, the just transition plan and the potential opportunities for future industrial use of the site. We will continue to do all that we can to pull that together as best we can.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Petroineos Grangemouth
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Neil Gray
I would expect the committee, and other committees across Parliament, to scrutinise it. Obviously, we will reflect on the concerns of the Just Transition Commission and take those on board as we continue to work up the just transition plan that we will publish early next year.
