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 862 contributions
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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
Craig Hoy
Do you accept that it is difficult to legislate on a Donald Rumsfeld approach of known knowns and known unknowns? There has to be some specificity, so is there more that you could do in the bill to flesh out what you mean by a public health emergency or threat? It could otherwise be open to misinterpretation by future Administrations.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
Craig Hoy
The Parliament will do that, but the courts might also scrutinise the legislation or the implementation or enactment of that legislation at some point.
What seems to distinguish the bill and the measures that it would effect is that we are passing it into law on a permanent basis. We could have tried to challenge many of the measures that have been brought in during the pandemic, but article 15 of the European convention on human rights gave you the safeguard and the certainty that the measures could not be challenged, because it says that Governments can act
“in exceptional circumstances ... in a limited and supervised manner,”
free
“from their obligations to secure certain rights and freedoms under the Convention.”
One element is the “limited and supervised” aspect, but passing the bill as permanent legislation will mean that you lose the time-limited element. Are you certain that article 15 would give safeguards if the bill was passed into law?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
Craig Hoy
I have two or three general questions before I go on to specific questions on the delegated measures. The bill will be on the statute book beyond the present Government’s time and, although I would not want to question this Government’s character or motivations, we are giving future Governments considerable powers. A lot of that rests on the definition of a public health emergency or threat. We know about Covid, but will you give us other examples of where a public health emergency or threat might arise?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
Craig Hoy
I have a couple of specific questions about the measures. You referred to the fact that the Government takes advice from the chief medical officer on protecting public health, and the regulations will flow from that. In relation to education and educational establishments in particular, there does not appear to be any requirement in the bill for any assessment to take place of the impact of an instrument made under the powers that may be exercised through the made affirmative procedure. Do you agree that it is important that those affected understand the impact of the regulations and that the information is accessible, clear and published in a timely manner? Would you consider amending the bill so that a requirement for such a process is included in it?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
Craig Hoy
Nor is shutting an educational boarding facility.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
Craig Hoy
Logic dictates one or the other. Either you want a statute book that gives you the capacity to do such things in certain defined circumstances or you do not. Mr Simpson and I are challenging the whole nature of the bill, because you are effectively passing into law certain powers that you would like to keep in the future—you tell us that you require them—and others that you say you are happy to let fall in 2025. By your own logic, you would surely want to keep in place the capacity to release prisoners.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
Craig Hoy
Finally, are you not putting the cart before the horse with the particular measure in section 37? Would it not be better to pause, wait for the consultation, and then come back with further primary legislation as and when it is required?
Public Audit Committee
“Social care briefing”
Meeting date: 3 March 2022
Craig Hoy
I do not want to get into the detail of the proposals for a national care service—I do not want to pre-empt what the Government comes forward with—but, given that your report identifies that there is an urgent need for actions in relation to the present system, particularly in adult social care, is there a risk that the difficult decisions that need to be taken now could be put on hold, particularly given the much wider scope of and remit for a national care service, which go well beyond what the Feeley review envisaged?
Public Audit Committee
“Social care briefing”
Meeting date: 3 March 2022
Craig Hoy
The timetable on page 19 shows, in effect, the national care service becoming fully operational by 2026. Bearing in mind that we are already into the second quarter of 2022 and no legislation has come forward as yet, do you think that the timetable is reasonable and that any costings that you have seen so far are likely to be deliverable and achievable?
Public Audit Committee
“Social care briefing”
Meeting date: 3 March 2022
Craig Hoy
In response to a question from Mr Beattie, you talked about the importance of data. The Scottish Government’s consultation envisages a single national information technology system for patient and resident records. What are the risks in putting together such a huge scheme, given that public sector IT systems have not always run according to plan or budget?
