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 1046 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Neil Gray
That has to be the overall aspiration. Beyond Grangemouth, I do not see where there would be complementarity that allows for blue hydrogen, but it depends on the potential projects coming forward. However, green hydrogen is where the maximum opportunity is and where the big wins will come, in my view.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Neil Gray
We will need infrastructure near to where the offshore renewable energy is coming from. We have provided a £100 million fund for that transition to go forward and, we hope, to encourage further investment to ensure that the technology is commercialised, resulting in further infrastructure off the back of that. We want to work with potential producers to ensure that their plans align with where we are looking to go. I am hopeful that that will come forward.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Neil Gray
I have set out my view.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Neil Gray
We have established a new offshore wind directorate in the Scottish Government to look directly at that, partly to learn from the process with the onshore wind sector and to ensure that we have a supply chain that, as much as possible—to go back to the deputy convener’s questions—has a domestic supply chain as part of that. The Sumitomo announcement is important, because it gives confidence to other potential investors. It also gives confidence around the potential that Scotland has as a renewable energy generator. Obviously, the energy strategy and just transition plan will be important in ensuring that we continue to put in place the policy levers that allow for the domestic supply chain to be put in place and ensure that we can service the demands of the offshore sector.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Neil Gray
The energy minister, Gillian Martin, met Andrew Bowie on the day that Mr Bowie gave evidence to this committee on the UK Government’s Energy Bill. Some of the discussions featured the issue of capacity in the grid and ensuring that appropriate support is in place to allow such projects to come on board.
I will bring in Claire Jones to provide supplementary information.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Neil Gray
We want to continue to encourage better community benefit and community shared ownership models, and that is where community wealth building policies come into play. On the area that we have just discussed, you can really see demonstrable benefit to local communities from particular infrastructure being put in place. We will all have examples of communities that are neighbouring areas where renewable or other energy projects are taking place aiming to get discernible benefits from those projects.
I will happily bring in Ragne Low at this stage, as she has been closer to the issue over a longer period.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Neil Gray
To be fair, I have set out my position and that of the Government quite clearly, and I will rest at the response that I gave earlier.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Neil Gray
We would do exactly what I have just said. We would look to have a much smoother and more balanced consenting regime to ensure that we have, interacting with NPF4, a strategic look at where we are going to need that infrastructure. We need to prioritise that infrastructure while also, obviously, taking communities with us. That is the balance that needs to be struck.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Neil Gray
Probably not, deputy convener. You are probably right in your assessment that communities are possibly not aware of the full infrastructure requirements that there will be.
There are a couple of points here. First, we need to understand that undergrounding is, in itself, not necessarily the full answer. To underground high-voltage cabling requires a significant amount of concrete over a long period of time and over a long distance, which has a huge environmental impact of its own. It is also really important that we come forward with a clearer sense of what we are looking to do, for instance with the likes of hydrogen, and how we can utilise energy in the locality rather than transmitting it all.
Taking communities with us is obviously going to be really important, and understanding the scale of the infrastructure will be part of that process. I am more than happy to take that away and look at how we can do more to provide that information.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Neil Gray
Yes, I think that we need to have those discussions. We also need to see greater consistency in where the community benefit money goes. In some areas, it goes to community development trusts; in other areas, it goes direct to local authorities to be distributed. I would like there to be greater consistency in where those payments are distributed. I also want the benefit that a local community derives from a neighbouring project to be more demonstrable. I say that as both a Government minister and a MSP who has quite a substantial onshore wind footprint around my constituency.
