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 886 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Department for Work and Pensions (Devolved Social Security)
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
I will go back to my colleague, Emma Roddick, who unfortunately I cut off. I did not realise that she had another question, because she froze on the screen.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Department for Work and Pensions (Devolved Social Security)
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
I completely understand that. We may need to follow that up in writing with you. Those of us in the room caught some of it and then it sped up at the end and we could not catch what Emma Roddick was saying, unfortunately. I will have to move on the next theme. We have questions from Natalie Don, who also joins us remotely.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Department for Work and Pensions (Devolved Social Security)
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
Thank you for adding that. I guess that that leads on to Pam Duncan-Glancy’s question about passporting benefits.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Department for Work and Pensions (Devolved Social Security)
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
Did that answer your question, Pam?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Department for Work and Pensions (Devolved Social Security)
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
I pass over to my colleague Marie McNair, who is joining us remotely and who has a question on this theme.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Department for Work and Pensions (Devolved Social Security)
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
Jeremy Balfour will be followed by Emma Roddick, who is participating remotely.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Department for Work and Pensions (Devolved Social Security)
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Elena Whitham
The next theme is case transfer. I know that Jeremy Balfour has had his question answered, so we will move on to questions from Pam Duncan-Glancy.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
Elena Whitham
Thank you, convener. I was reflecting on your suggestion about looking across the world for examples of how different countries operate. I can give an example that we should never follow. I grew up in Montreal, which is predominantly a city of renters, most of whom rent from the private sector. Leases run to 1 July every year. Every year on 1 July, about 70,000 households move. It is called Montreal moving day madness. We should never seek to emulate any such system.
My question reflects the issue that Miles Briggs raised, which Mark Griffin also touched on. We know that the private rented sector is a huge help to us in addressing homelessness. For many years, those who have been at risk of homelessness or who have been homeless have used the private rented sector to get secure tenancies. The changes that were made in 2016 strengthened those arrangements.
However, we know that, before the pandemic, there were a lot of evictions in the private rented sector. Do you think that the two specific provisions that we are considering will help to reduce that number? Do you think that they capture the recommendations from the reconvened HARSAG group, the social renewal advisory board’s housing policy circle and the Scotland prevention review group, which is now consulting on the prevention duties? I wish that those had been looked at in the early 2000s, when the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Bill was first considered. I would like to hear your thoughts on those issues.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
Elena Whitham
Before I ask my questions—a lot of the questions that I was going to ask have already been asked and answered, which is fantastic—I declare an interest, in that I am a sitting councillor on East Ayrshire Council.
I will direct my first question to Matt Downie. I know that, for many years, Crisis has promoted the responsible use of the private rented sector for those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. As we have heard, year on year before the pandemic, eviction levels from the private rented sector exceeded those from the social rented sector. How will the proposals in part 4 of the bill address that? Do the proposals capture all the recommendations and outputs from the reconvened homelessness and rough sleeping action group and the social renewal advisory board, especially now that we face the additional pressures of the cost of living crisis?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
Elena Whitham
I will direct my second and final question to John Blackwood. At the height of the pandemic, we met as part of the private rented sector resilience group, which had been set up at the time. I am glad to hear anecdotal evidence that there was great support for landlords to work hand in hand with tenants to prevent homelessness, because, at the time, we spoke a lot about that and the need to distribute information on support. I know that this has already been touched on, but how could we improve that situation?
The Social Justice and Social Security Committee, which I convene, is holding an open inquiry into problem debt and poverty. We know that people who are in that situation often find it difficult to engage with services. There are landlords across the country who are not members of your association, so how do we join up all those services in order that the support agencies, councils and landlords can work on a cross-sector basis to prevent homelessness as far upstream as possible?
