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
Interests
Meeting date: 27 January 2022
Martin Whitfield
Thank you. Collette Stevenson is joining the committee to replace Elena Whitham. I thank Elena for her work with the committee and seek the committee’s approval to write to her to thank her for the time that she spent with us. Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Interests
Meeting date: 27 January 2022
Martin Whitfield
Excellent—thank you.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Complaint
Meeting date: 20 January 2022
Martin Whitfield
We will now move to agenda item 2 in the second meeting in 2022 of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee.
The committee has been considering a complaint about a former member of the Scottish Parliament. On behalf of the committee, I will now read out a statement that sets out the committee’s findings.
The committee has considered a complaint from Mr Joe Lo about Alison Harris. The complaint is that Alison Harris did not appropriately register the true market value of the shares that she held in Georgian Finance Company Ltd in the register of interests.
The committee is unanimous on the decision reached on the complaint. The committee cannot concur with all the findings in fact of the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland and does not agree with the commissioner’s conclusion.
In relation to the commissioner’s findings in fact, the committee does not consider that the valuation of the market value of the shares in Georgian Finance Company Ltd secured by the commissioner can be deemed to be the definitive market value of the shares in the context of the code of conduct. Indeed, the committee highlights that material included in the commissioner’s report illustrates that experts can have conflicting views on the market value of the shares in private limited companies because different methodologies can be used to determine that.
The committee was cognisant that the code of conduct for MSPs does not provide a definition of market value, and nor does it prescribe any methodology for ascertaining the value of shares. However, the code states:
“On detailed financial and commercial matters,”
a member
“may wish to seek advice from other relevant professionals.”
Alison Harris indicated in her representations to the committee that she had sought the professional opinion of the company’s accountant on the market value of the shareholding, which she interpreted as being nil due to her being unable to freely sell her shares.
In relation to the commissioner’s conclusion, the committee does not agree that there are sufficient grounds to conclude that there has been a breach of the Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament Act 2006 and the code of conduct.
Alison Harris registered an interest in shares on the basis that she held more than 1 per cent of the nominal value of the issued share capital of the company. She did not, additionally, register those shares on the basis of the market value exceeding 50 per cent of a member’s salary at the start of the relevant parliamentary session, because she ascertained the shares to have a market value of £1.
Although the committee recognises that a fair observer might reasonably consider the market value to be higher, there were conflicting expert views on the market value of the shares. In addition, the committee could not draw on either a definition of market value or a prescribed method for reaching a market valuation within the code to reach an incontrovertible conclusion that the market value of the shares exceeded the threshold. For those reasons, the committee does not consider that it is in a position to reach the conclusion that a breach of either the act or the code has taken place.
The committee recognises that there are many different types of shareholdings, particularly in relation to private limited companies, and that, in some circumstances, ascertaining a market value for shares can be complex. For that reason, it intends to consider that matter further with a view to revising the guidance on the code of conduct for MSPs to provide more clarity to members on the registration requirements and greater transparency to the public on members’ interests.
In conclusion, although the committee does not consider that there are sufficient grounds to consider that the code of conduct has been breached in relation to the complaint, it reminds all members that they should approach the registration of their financial interests in the spirit of the utmost transparency to ensure that their integrity and propriety cannot be called into question.
Full details of the complaint and the commissioner’s investigation of it will be included in the committee’s report, which will be published later this afternoon.
We will now move into private session.
10:35 Meeting continued in private until 10:41.Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Groups
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Martin Whitfield
The next group that we will consider is a proposed CPG on maritime and shipbuilding. I welcome Paul Sweeney MSP, who is the proposed convener of the proposed group. Good morning, Paul, and happy new year. I invite you to give a short presentation to the committee about the intentions of the CPG.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Martin Whitfield
I am grateful to the committee for that.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Martin Whitfield
I will ask a final question to ensure that it is on the record. The period for scrutiny was shortened because of the urgency of the legislation, and a relatively small number of groups were consulted on it. The policy document says that there was support for the change. From the consultation, was there any disagreement about the early issuing of poll cards?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Martin Whitfield
There was a significant rise in postal votes for the Holyrood election, but there are a number of people who are unclear as to whether they registered for one election or for continuing postal votes. Indeed, I have spoken to members of the public who have been slightly caught out with that in a by-election. Has any analysis been done of the figures for people who signed up for the Holyrood election alone rather than for continuing postal votes up to the number of years that are permitted?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Groups
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Martin Whitfield
It appears that Mr Simpson’s video feed has frozen, and I do not know whether we will be able to return to it. I will give him a moment.
From looking at the BlueJeans attendance list, I think that we may well have lost Mr Simpson—unfortunately, he has dropped offline. Ah, the travails of information technology. I think that this has happened in order to give us more evidence for later discussion.
For the record, I thank Mr Simpson for his comments about our debate and the discussions that we had afterwards. In eager anticipation, I look forward to his bill winging its way to us.
I am not getting any indication that Mr Simpson is going to be able to rejoin us. I therefore move to agenda item 3, which is formal approval of the three cross-party groups that we have heard from this morning, on beer and pubs, maritime and shipbuilding, and poverty. Does any member have comments or views to express before I formally put the proposal to the committee? There is no indication that anyone has, so I formally propose that the three CPGs—on beer and pubs, maritime and shipbuilding, and poverty—be accorded recognition. Are we in agreement?
Members indicated agreement.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Martin Whitfield
I am grateful for that.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Groups
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Martin Whitfield
Thank you very much. I invite Edward Mountain to comment with regard to the proposed CPG. I will ask a couple of questions after that.
