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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.

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.

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Displaying 2186 contributions

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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee

Minister for Parliamentary Business

Meeting date: 21 June 2022

Stephen Kerr

It actually happens more often than you might credit.

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 9 June 2022

Stephen Kerr

I do not have any relevant interests to declare.

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 9 June 2022

Stephen Kerr

I understand what you are saying about the use of the word “laptop”, but I am not sure that I follow the logic of what you say about amendment 119 not taking into account the means by which the devices are distributed to children in the first place. You have made a commitment to the pupils of Scotland that they will have devices, Deputy First Minister. Irrespective of the route of distribution for the devices or the internet connections, that is a Scottish Government commitment. I have spoken in the chamber before about it and asked the First Minister questions about it. Will you explain the logic behind your objection?

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 9 June 2022

Stephen Kerr

I am not hung up on a particular set of words; I am hung up on the idea that something has to be done to assure ministers that, when they make such drastic decisions, the provision exists for every child to access education and learning remotely. I know that John Mason shares my passion and commitment to ensuring that that happens.

There is great virtue in underscoring that commitment, which I hope we all share, by including it in the bill. I refer members again to the words of the Deputy First Minister when he talked about

“the barriers to education that too many children face”.

Those barriers became higher and larger—they grew in every dimension—during the pandemic. If the bill is to fulfil its purpose, as ministers have repeatedly stated, I hope that the Government will accept amendment 119. It seeks to ensure that, when schools are to be shut down for good reason, no child is left behind, and no young person’s educational pathway will be disrupted even more than it would be as a result of the closure of a school.

It aims to ensure that children and young people will not be denied access to learning, education or teachers—to some kind of educational experience—nor will they be denied, to quote John Swinney,

“access to the rich educational resources of the internet”.

We should all aspire to that for every child in Scotland, which is why I am passionate in moving amendment 119.

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 9 June 2022

Stephen Kerr

I am grateful to be here to speak to amendment 119, which seeks to ensure that, before making regulations to close schools, the Scottish ministers ensure that every child and young person is provided with a laptop and an internet connection. The committee and the cabinet secretary will not be surprised to hear that, in principle, I oppose the bill but, given that it is likely to become law, it is important that we try to improve it as much as possible. I am particularly passionate about the issue and therefore I seek to improve the bill in a way that will narrow the attainment gap, which we know is growing, and ensure that no child in Scotland, especially from the poorest families, is left behind in any way.

Until a couple of weeks ago, I was the convener of the Education, Children and Young People Committee, which heard evidence on the bill. Remote learning, which my colleague Oliver Mundell has mentioned, was one of the issues that were touched on in that evidence. The committee asked the cabinet secretary for specific assurances in relation to the provision of laptops and internet connection, particularly in circumstances in which the Government is making a decision to close schools.

It is a Scottish National Party election commitment to provide young people with devices and internet connections. The cabinet secretary may be surprised to hear me say this, but I am genuinely trying to be helpful in lodging the amendment, which brings to the fore the fulfilment of that SNP promise. I hope to be able to appeal to the Government, and to the Deputy First Minister in particular, by using his own words. Just over a year ago, John Swinney said:

“We will end the digital divide between those who have access to the rich educational resources of the internet and open that electronic world to every child in Scotland ... we are determined to tear down the barriers to education that too many children face.”

I agree with all that.