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 534 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
General Question Time
Meeting date: 26 May 2022
Tess White
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the consultation with women and women’s organisations regarding their safety while using the public transport system. (S6O-01142)
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 26 May 2022
Tess White
A week before the census deadline, National Records of Scotland announced that only 84.8 per cent of households had filled in the census. In Dundee, almost a fifth of households had not completed it. In Glasgow, the figure was close to a quarter. Last year, the return rate in England and Wales was 97 per cent. With just five days to go, does the Deputy First Minister agree that the census has been a disaster from start to finish, and that it was a mistake to separate the Scottish census from the wider United Kingdom census?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
General Question Time
Meeting date: 26 May 2022
Tess White
Last year, there were 46 sexual assaults against women on Scotland’s railways, which was the highest number in a decade, and 301 women were unacceptably threatened, harassed or commonly assaulted. However, that is just the tip of the iceberg; the figure is likely to be much higher because the gender of the victim was not known in more than 2,500 incidents. Those figures are sickening. Every day, women are fearful that they will be victimised in a train carriage or on a station platform. What urgent action will the Scottish Government take now to ensure that women can travel safely on public transport?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Tess White
Leading health charities have in recent days called on the Scottish National Party-Green Government to urgently appoint a women’s health champion, as was promised last August. There is no time to lose. That is why I am extremely concerned that the appointment might not be made for another two years. Can the minister tell us, in black and white, when exactly that role will be established, so that women can access the healthcare and treatment that we deserve?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Solar Energy
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Tess White
Manufacturing could be a significant bottleneck, particularly bearing in mind our shortage of manufacturing skills. What is Mr Ewing’s view on our manufacturing capability for solar production?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Tess White
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the sports and events sectors regarding alternative transport arrangements in light of the revised ScotRail train timetable. (S6T-00730)
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Tess White
The world cup qualifier on 1 June is one of the biggest games in 20 years, with more than 50,000 people flocking to Hampden. Considering the last-minute changes on the day that 700 services were axed, can the minister give fans the assurances that they need that extra capacity will be provided to get them home from Hampden—many will be going to northern cities—and that that capacity will not fall foul of more unplanned cancellations?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Tess White
The night-time economy and the cultural sector are already on their knees as a result of the pandemic. The Night Time Industries Association has described the cuts to rail services as “devastating” and has said that
“Scotland’s economic recovery and the future of many thousands of small businesses and jobs”
are at risk as a result of the rail service being cut to the bone.
Last week, Douglas Ross asked the First Minister what compensation will be made available to businesses that are affected by the cuts. The First Minister did not answer. Can the minister provide a response now?
Meeting of the Parliament
Adverse Weather Events
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Tess White
Storms Arwen, Barra, Malik and Corrie were so severe that they tragically resulted in loss of life. I know that the thoughts of us all are with the loved ones of those who died. Those major storms had a shattering effect on communities—especially rural communities—across Scotland. The north-east in particular experienced profound and prolonged hardship. Households and businesses lost power for several days and people could not heat their homes or premises in the depths of winter. Their connectivity was compromised because road and rail infrastructure was damaged. Their communications were cut off because they could not charge electrical items.
Following storms Malik and Corrie, the storm damage was so severe that Edzell was completely cut off by fallen trees. In Fettercairn sheltered housing complex, Queen Elizabeth Court was without power for three nights. In Stonehaven, residents did not know where to go to access much-needed support. Such was the scale and length of the emergency that many of those affected became what the British Red Cross describes as “newly vulnerable”. By a certain point, everybody becomes vulnerable.
I pay tribute to the extraordinary efforts of responders on the ground who operated in very difficult and complex conditions, whether they were repairing line faults to restore power supply or going door to door to provide welfare support. The voluntary and community sector was integral to the response, and every volunteer deserves our recognition and thanks. I hope that others will consider signing up, too.
Although there was a massive operation to facilitate recovery, it was painfully clear that more should have been done to build resilience and protect communities. As we look ahead, we can see that the Scottish Government’s storm Arwen review is a step in the right direction. The six overarching recommendations and 15 action points highlight areas of improvement, but I strongly believe it needs a delivery plan. It needs to have clear timescales for implementation before this coming winter. There also needs to be greater transparency around the resources that are available to local resilience partnerships to take these recommendations forward. We know the risks of taking no action, and those risks are simply too great. Those recommendations must be implemented expeditiously.
I have talked to constituents and businesses about how they were impacted by the storms and I have held discussions with the British Red Cross and Scottish and Southern Energy Networks about the changes that urgently need to be implemented to better prepare people, communities and infrastructure for extreme weather events.
A key issue that emerged from those discussions was communication about advising people what preventative measures to take to prepare for a red alert and also what to do when the usual channels of communication are unavailable for prolonged periods. When the red alert was first issued for storm Arwen, there was no signposting to the Ready Scotland website. It has advice for putting together an emergency kit, including wind-up radios and torches, but it appears that public awareness of that resource was, and remains, worryingly low. Equally, many people across the north-east could not use conventional lines of communication to access vital updates about the developing situation, from which roads were closed and when to expect power to be restored to where to access support locally from rest centres and welfare vans.
Meeting of the Parliament
Adverse Weather Events
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Tess White
The storm Arwen review is welcome, but there is a concern that it will not be acted upon by winter. Can the Deputy First Minister commit to having deliverable timescales in place before winter?
