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 2412 contributions
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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.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
Good morning, and welcome to the 15th meeting in 2022 of the Education, Children and Young People Committee. The first item on our agenda is a one-off evidence session on the implementation of the policy to provide 1,140 hours of early learning and childcare.
I welcome Matthew Sweeney, policy manager for children and young people at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities; Jane Brumpton, chief executive of Early Years Scotland; Adam Hall, programme manager for the recovery and delivery programme at the Improvement Service; Jonathan Broadbery, head of policy and communications at the National Day Nurseries Association; and Graeme McAlister, chief executive of the Scottish Childminding Association. All our panelists are joining us remotely for various reasons, most of which have to do with transport.
We have five panellists, so please do not feel that you all have to answer every question. When you want to say something, we want to hear from you. If you indicate in the chat box that you want to comment, we will make sure that you get in, but do not feel obliged to answer every question. I hope that that is helpful. My colleagues will direct their questions to one of you in the first instance so that we can keep things moving smoothly. It is not the same as being in the room, but we will try to replicate that as far as possible.
My first question is for Matthew Sweeney. What has worked well in the expansion of childcare hours?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
Jonathan Broadbery, can we hear your take on that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
I am just going on what Matthew Sweeney has said, with a great deal of transparency, about what everyone knew was going to happen, which is exactly what is happening.
At this point, I will bring in Bob Doris and then ask one last question.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
Are you now giving evidence, or are you asking a question?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
Michael Marra has a secondary line of questioning.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
It is very useful to hear that. Our next question is from Kaukab Stewart.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
Right. I will come back to Bob Doris later. I have made a note of members who want to come back with secondary lines of questioning if we have time.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
The extraordinary thing that we have learned from this morning’s evidence session is that this was deliberately designed into the policy. That is something that we should all contemplate.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
I have one last question for the last minute. I am always concerned about outcomes. At the end of the day, that is what we have to be focused on—what improves, what changes and how did we do against the objectives that we set ourselves? From this morning, however, it is not clear to me who is doing the measuring of the outcomes over time. I will go round very quickly, and I ask for very short answers to this, please. Who is doing the vitally important work of measuring those outcomes?
