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 1654 contributions
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Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Maggie Chapman
Thank you, Patrycja—that is a clear outline of some of the barriers and issues around digital replacements for face-to-face meeting spaces. We need to think a bit more creatively and imaginatively about that.
I turn to Margaret Lance. I am aware that ethnic minority women face additional exclusions around not only digital poverty but safe spaces to meet, and there may be cultural issues that we need to understand a bit more clearly. What would you like to say in response?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Maggie Chapman
You have clearly outlined the gross failure of society to understand different family models, which we need to think about more widely, and not just in this committee. We also need to think about how to deal with issues of isolation and the on-going mental health impacts on individuals and society, which will affect us for a significant time to come, because I am not sure that we have systems in place to do that. I will leave it there just now, convener, and will come in again later if that is okay.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Maggie Chapman
That is helpful—thank you, Satwat. Patrycja Kupiec wants to come in next.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Maggie Chapman
Thank you, Margaret—that is really helpful. It is useful that you mentioned the police. We have talked about social services and other support services, but it is important that you brought the police into the discussion. We perhaps need to think about conversations that we can have with the police around cultural understanding and sensitivities, so that their role does not come down to blind enforcement of a policy and there is a sensitive understanding of different situations.
I will leave it there for now.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Maggie Chapman
Thank you for being with us this morning and for your opening statements. You all referred in some way to a point that we have heard before, which is that the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities, whether in gender—because of the patriarchal society—race, age, or ability. I want to unpick the intersections, particularly in relation to carers who are women of colour, ethnic minorities, the issue that Margaret Lance raised around having no recourse to public funds, and how support has been, if not absent, very difficult to access. Will you say a little bit more about the women, carers and others with whom you have direct experience?
I put that to Margaret Lance first. I will then ask Satwat Rehman to come in.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Maggie Chapman
That was very helpful. Thank you, Margaret.
Does Satwat Rehman want to come in to say a little bit about the women, lone carers and lone families whom she supports, and how they have dealt with some of the intersections—the cross-cutting inequalities—that they face?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Maggie Chapman
I thank the witnesses for their contribution so far. Given what you have all said—this picks up on Bill Ireland’s most recent comments—we will see change and diversification. In the future, your sectors will look quite different from how they looked pre-pandemic. I am interested in exploring the connections between resilience and innovation. I know that, in some areas of construction, there is innovation in building information management and design. What are the key opportunities for innovation in your industries, including with regard to materials, which are one of the issues that we are talking about today? What do you need from us to enable that innovation to happen and be that catalyst for change? Do you want to start off, Bill?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Maggie Chapman
What other things should we focus on?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Maggie Chapman
I come to Gordon Banks on the connection between resilience and innovation.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Maggie Chapman
Thank you. Does Ruth Boyle want to come in on that question?
