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 1433 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
Planning (Housing)
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Christine Grahame
Good housing is central to health and wellbeing, but it is difficult in rural areas, such as the Scottish Borders, to have house builders engage in small developments. Some communities might feel that they will be sidestepped in the interests of accelerated house building, and many, as we know, only become engaged in the planning process late in the day.
I welcome reference to Planning Aid Scotland. Frankly, local members should be well aware of its functions, but most of the public are not. What can the Scottish Government do to help communities to engage with Planning Aid?
Meeting of the Parliament
Brexit (Impact on Rural Economy)
Meeting date: 7 November 2024
Christine Grahame
Forgive me, but I will start with the bad news. In the referendum on whether to remain in or leave the EU, commonsense Scotland voted 62 per cent to remain—it did not matter which part of Scotland you lived in; every council area in Scotland, urban and rural, voted remain. That was in 2016. The result was that David Cameron resigned and in came Theresa May, who was dispatched quite quickly and was followed by oven-ready Brexit Boris, with that £350 million a week so-called Brexit bonus for the national health service plastered on the side of a bus—oh, and, apparently, a queue of other countries just itching to do trade deals with a liberated UK.
I recall President Barack Obama warning that, after Brexit, the UK would be at the “back of the queue” for trade talks with the USA, and President-elect Donald Trump is going one better by threatening tariffs of 10 per cent to 20 per cent on imports to the USA, which is the UK’s biggest trading market. There are tough times ahead for food and drink exports from Scotland. Beatrice Wishart was quite right about that so-called queue of people waiting for trade deals.
Interestingly, before the referendum, Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne issued extremely dour predictions on the effect of Brexit on the economy. Those predictions went all the way to 2030. He is better than Mystic Meg, as his predictions have come to pass. Fast forward eight years and the independent Office for Budget Responsibility has said:
“weak growth in imports and exports over the medium term partly reflect the continuing impact of Brexit”,
which it expects to
“reduce the overall trade intensity of the UK economy by 15 per cent in the long term.”
Meeting of the Parliament
Brexit (Impact on Rural Economy)
Meeting date: 7 November 2024
Christine Grahame
If you are going to tell me a benefit of Brexit, I will listen.
Meeting of the Parliament
Brexit (Impact on Rural Economy)
Meeting date: 7 November 2024
Christine Grahame
Well, I do not know—what a choice. I will give way to my friend Mr Hoy.
Meeting of the Parliament
Brexit (Impact on Rural Economy)
Meeting date: 7 November 2024
Christine Grahame
I challenge the member for suggesting that it would be very difficult for Scotland to re-enter the EU. Most of our legislation and policies remain EU compliant. They are now being dismembered, but they are there, so it would be much easier for us than for somebody who was coming in for the first time.
Meeting of the Parliament
Brexit (Impact on Rural Economy)
Meeting date: 7 November 2024
Christine Grahame
Is it a Brexit benefit, Mr Eagle?
Meeting of the Parliament
Brexit (Impact on Rural Economy)
Meeting date: 7 November 2024
Christine Grahame
I was pondering, but I think that I will.
Meeting of the Parliament
Brexit (Impact on Rural Economy)
Meeting date: 7 November 2024
Christine Grahame
I will shortly.
Furthermore, rather than our having that £350 million a week Brexit bonus that we saw on the side of a bus, the UK Treasury has been forced to admit that the UK has already paid to the EU £23.8 billion as part of its financial settlement agreement and will pay a further £6.4 billion. I do not call that a benefit.
Then there was the Boris battle cry that, after Brexit, the UK could control immigration. How has that gone? As a matter of fact, immigration from the EU was largely economic, based on job seeking, which is much less true of immigration from outside the EU.
I say to Tim Eagle that the present and the future are predicated on the past. No wonder he and the Tories have lodged an amendment that would delete from the motion any reference to Brexit.
The rural sector, like others, is feeling the impact of Brexit—one that Labour will not reverse. That sector comprises 26 per cent of Scotland’s economy.
Meeting of the Parliament
Brexit (Impact on Rural Economy)
Meeting date: 7 November 2024
Christine Grahame
I will, but a little bit later, Mr Eagle, if you do not mind.
The rural economy puts food on our plates, leads the fight against climate change and nature loss, and delivers significant value for taxpayers’ investment. Rural businesses are at the forefront of our efforts to tackle the nature and climate crisis, and, at the same time, they provide jobs that boost our economy and support Scotland’s food economy. It is a fantastic sector. Rural businesses are the custodians of the land that they farm, and, if only on that, I agree with that part of Mr Eagle’s amendment.
I turn to the labour market. Much of the rural economy was dependent on EU workers, who were often seasonal. That has pretty well ended, and we have heard of produce dying and rotting in the fields for want of labour. Is that one of the benefits of Brexit, Mr Hoy?
I turn to the possible veterinary agreement with the EU.
Meeting of the Parliament
Brexit (Impact on Rural Economy)
Meeting date: 7 November 2024
Christine Grahame
I would like to get on. Is it about the veterinary agreement? [Interruption.] Is this a benefit?
