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 1487 contributions
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Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Martin Whitfield
My question is slightly more nuanced in the sense that, in this scenario, the voter’s name would be registered to vote but one polling clerk would have made a decision that the evidence that was presented to them was such that the voter could not vote on that name in the UK election. What would happen about the Scottish election?
I will add another little problem: what if the voter had already cast their Scottish local authority election vote in one room but then a discussion happened at another table in relation to the UK-wide election? I presume that the polling official at the station would get involved in that decision—I do not think that it would rest exclusively with one of the two people sat at the table. What would happen with regard to the integrity of the two votes?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Martin Whitfield
I will move on from voter ID to the implications of a strategy and policy statement for the Electoral Commission. At the heart of this sits my concern about the impact on the independence of the Electoral Commission of the proposed ability to provide a strategy and policy statement.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Martin Whitfield
To clarify, there are two aspects. In an earlier answer, Pete Wildman talked about applications for postal votes and renewal of signatures. We are now talking about is the situation where, on the day of an election, people take votes that have been cast but not put into the postal service, to a polling station to put into a box. My understanding—this is what I seek clarification on—is that, in Scotland, there is no limit to the number of votes that one person can present at a polling station, but the bill to which the LCM applies proposes a restriction on the total number that can be handed in. Is that your understanding, too?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Martin Whitfield
I am sorry; I do not mean to cut across you, but I will ask my second question. Is there any evidence about whether people having voter ID, rather than its provision, increases the confidence of groups about elections?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Martin Whitfield
Would anyone else—
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Martin Whitfield
I was just wondering whether anyone wanted to come in before your response, Edward.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Martin Whitfield
It is a simple but always challenging question.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Martin Whitfield
We will move on to Paul McLennan.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Martin Whitfield
Before you do that, I have a question for Chris Highcock. On a day when two elections are being run separately but in the same building, someone could present 25 postal votes for a local election, but could be refused for a UK-wide general election. Do you have confidence that that could be defended satisfactorily?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Martin Whitfield
I am inviting you to repeat what I thought was your view on an earlier matter—that you would have confidence that, from the point of view of the individual polling clerks, the votes could be accepted for the Scottish local election but refusal to take the votes for the UK-wide election could be defended.
