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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COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Vaccination Certification
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Siobhian Brown
I am sorry, Mr Fairlie—we had been doing well for time, but now we have run out of it. I will bring in Alex Cole-Hamilton for some brief questions.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Siobhian Brown
We will now take evidence on the latest ministerial statement on Covid-19 and subordinate legislation. I welcome the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport, Michael Matheson; the national clinical director, Professor Jason Leitch; Angus Macleod, who is deputy director of the Scottish Government’s community surveillance division; and Graham Fisher, who is deputy director of the Scottish Government’s legal directorate. I thank them for their attendance. We will consider the following regulations.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Siobhian Brown
Thank you, cabinet secretary.
I am conscious that we have only 35 minutes for this session. Questions and answers should therefore be restricted to around four to five minutes each, please.
I will ask the first question. The recently updated Scottish Government travel advice, including the removal of the amber and green traffic light system, seems like great news for Scottish people who have been fully vaccinated and are hoping to go abroad on holiday. However, as I have been reminded by one of my constituents, a remaining challenge is that Scottish people who work abroad and are fully vaccinated are able to return to Scotland for a holiday to see their families only if they have been vaccinated in one of a limited number of countries—those in the European Union, the US and a small handful of other countries. Scots who live and work outside the US, the EU and the small group of other countries and are looking to see and reconnect with their families are not currently considered as vaccinated under the new guidelines, even if they are fully vaccinated with the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine. The issue seems to be where they were vaccinated, not what vaccine they were vaccinated with.
Are you aware of those challenges? When do you expect the list of qualifying countries to be expanded so that fully vaccinated Scots can return home for a holiday without a 10-day quarantine?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Siobhian Brown
The committee will in due course publish a report to the Parliament setting out our decision on the statutory instruments considered at this meeting.
That concludes our consideration of this agenda item and our time with the cabinet secretary, and I thank him and his supporting officials for their attendance this morning. The committee’s next meeting will be on 30 September, when we will take evidence on vaccination certification. We will also hear from the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery on the ministerial statement on Covid-19 and subordinate legislation.
That concludes the public part of the meeting.
11:06 Meeting continued in private until 11:20.COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Siobhian Brown
Item 3 is to decide whether to take in private item 7, which is consideration of the evidence that we have heard. Do members agree to take item 7 in private?
Members indicated agreement.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Siobhian Brown
As members have no further questions, we move to item 6, which is consideration of the motions on the made affirmative instruments.
I propose that the motions on the agenda be moved en bloc. Are members content?
Members indicated agreement.
Motions moved,
That the COVID-19 Recovery Committee recommends that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel) (Scotland) Amendment (No. 17) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/301) be approved.
That the COVID-19 Recovery Committee recommends that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel) (Scotland) Amendment (No. 18) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/307) be approved.
That the COVID-19 Recovery Committee recommends that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel) (Scotland) Amendment (No. 19) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/319) be approved.—[Michael Matheson]
Motions agreed to.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement, Coronavirus Act Reports and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 16 September 2021
Siobhian Brown
Thank you, Deputy First Minister. I note that no member wishes to speak on the motion.
Motion moved.
That the COVID-19 Recovery Committee recommends that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/299) be approved.—[John Swinney.]
Motion agreed to.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement, Coronavirus Act Reports and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 16 September 2021
Siobhian Brown
The committee will in due course publish a report to Parliament setting out our decision on the statutory instrument.
That concludes our consideration of the agenda item and our time with the Deputy First Minister. I thank him and his officials for their attendance.
The committee’s next meeting will be on 23 September, when we will continue to take evidence on vaccination certification. We will also take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport on the ministerial statement on Covid 19 and on subordinate legislation.
That concludes the public part of our meeting. I will allow the witnesses to leave before we continue in private session.
11:28 Meeting continued in private until 11:30.COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement, Coronavirus Act Reports and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 16 September 2021
Siobhian Brown
The next item of business is an evidence-taking session on the latest ministerial statement, the Coronavirus (Extension and Expiry) (Scotland) Act 2021 reports to the Scottish Parliament, and subordinate legislation.
I welcome to the meeting John Swinney, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery, and, from the Scottish Government, Elizabeth Blair, team leader, Covid co-ordination, governance and decision making; and Professor Jason Leitch, national clinical director. Thank you for attending this morning.
Deputy First Minister, do you wish to make any remarks before we move to questions?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement, Coronavirus Act Reports and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 16 September 2021
Siobhian Brown
If the committee does not mind, I will go round members in reverse order this time.
