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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Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Group Annual Report
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Martin Whitfield
That is very helpful.
To echo Bob Doris’s remarks about asking Colin Beattie pressing questions, there is an obligation on MSPs to ask such questions. Sometimes, we may need to save MSPs from themselves. I will certainly put in my letter that, should a CPG have come to the end of what it sought to achieve, it is possible for the convener of the group to write to us so that the group can, in essence, be de-recognised and its obligations can be removed.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Group Annual Report
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Martin Whitfield
That was helpful.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Group Annual Report
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Martin Whitfield
That is helpful, and it is right to say that a significant number of the CPGs have complied with their regulatory requirements. Indeed, there are CPGs that have not got to the stage when they would have been expected to do their annual return that have complied with all the requirements. We have already withdrawn recognition from one CPG this year for failure to meet the requirements, and that is noted in the report.
For the purposes of the annual review, would the committee be content for me, as convener, to write to all cross-party groups? I would thank those that have complied and, for those that have not complied, I would highlight where they have fallen short and the outcomes that could follow unless they rectify their regulatory failure—I was interested to hear Mr Beattie talking about regulatory requirements—and would ask them to explain why they have been unable to comply. I know that a number of events have had to be cancelled because of chamber commitments.
If the committee is happy for me to write to the cross-party groups in those terms, I think that that would be a way to take forward the annual monitoring report, which is an excellent piece of work—I echo Bob Doris’s comments on that. I would draw the report to the attention of all CPGs so that they can see how they are doing. It is very quick for members to find an individual CPG that they are involved in to see whether it has complied with the requirements.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Group Annual Report
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Martin Whitfield
That is common sense at its best. I will write to the conveners of the cross-party groups because, as MSPs, they are the individuals who have undertaken to comply with the requirements. However, it makes sense to make sure that the secretariats, where they are identified, are also aware of the situation, because of the good work that a lot of them do.
Almost from day 1, the committee has been concerned about CPGs. The issue is discussed by MSPs. At their very best, CPGs fulfil an incredibly valuable function in the Parliament, as they allow people, industries, charities, the third sector and communities in Scotland to reach out and speak to specific MSPs in order to seek their help and assistance or simply to give them information. However, the annual report shows that there are warning lights on the dashboard, which it would be wrong for us to ignore.
If the committee is happy, I will write to all CPGs, as well as their supporting secretariats, to congratulate those that have complied. For those that have not, I will seek an explanation and an undertaking that they will put right the defects as soon as possible. Are members content with that suggestion?
Members indicated agreement.
10:13 Meeting continued in private until 11:14.Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Martin Whitfield
Good morning. I welcome everyone to the first meeting in 2023 of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee.
Agenda item 1 is a decision on whether to take business in private. Do members agree to take in private agenda item 6, under which the committee will discuss the cross-party group system, and agenda item 7, under which the committee will consider correspondence that we have received from the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body?
Members indicated agreement.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Group
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Martin Whitfield
Thank you, Colin. It is nice to see—and I mean this in the most polite of ways—the almost juvenile excitement about Skyrora signing up to the group. It speaks to an interesting time with regard to space here, in Scotland, where there is almost that childhood excitement about rockets and satellites. The reality is that a significant number of jobs already exist in the industry, as you have indicated.
Before I invite other members of the committee to contribute, can you confirm the extent of what you are covering with regard to space? I could read the quote about the final frontier if it covers everything. Your interest is in the launch site facilities and the engineering behind the production of satellites and all the supply chains into that in Scotland—is that right?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Martin Whitfield
That is helpful.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Martin Whitfield
Item 4 is correspondence that we have received from Graeme Dey MSP, in which he raises a number of concerns about parliamentary motions and how they are being used, particularly those that congratulate individuals or organisations. Do any members of the committee have any comments on that?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Martin Whitfield
That is helpful.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Group
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Martin Whitfield
Thank you for attending, Mr Beattie. The committee will now consider whether to approve the application, and the clerks will inform you of our decision in due course.
Under agenda item 3, the committee will consider whether to accord recognition to the proposed cross-party group on space. Are there any comments?
