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 1524 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Fiona Hyslop
I will come first to Anthea Coulter and then to Mark Darragh. We have heard that considerable funding is now available for town centres. We also know that there is a great deal of entrepreneurship, not just in the third sector but in the business improvement districts. Would that enable better collaborative working with councils? There has been a period of austerity in which councils may have been risk averse, because things have been tight financially. What enablers would help a culture of bigger projects, potentially? People want to see value from a BID, which they might not see in a small project. Are capabilities opening up that perhaps were not there five years ago?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Fiona Hyslop
Thank you. Does Tim Lord have any reflections on international and historical lessons that we might learn?
As well as this crisis, we are facing the climate crisis. Reference has been made to the trillions of pounds in funds that need to be invested. We have heard from Dr Hannon that a fabric first approach will be essential to help in the immediate term. Is there no way that we could ask the private sector to mobilise in order to help with that investment in the short term? Such investment might not be as attractive as offshore wind investment, for example, but it would make a real difference to people’s lives this winter if such mobilisation could take place.
That question provides quite a large canvas, but any reflections would be helpful.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Fiona Hyslop
I was going to suggest to the convener that we might move on, so that other members could come in. However, if other panel members have anything to say on energy market reform, I ask them please to indicate through the chat function or to bring it in when somebody else asks a question.
I think that Tim Lord might want to say something. I will pass back after him.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Fiona Hyslop
Thank you. Clearly, a lot of this is reserved to the UK Government, but it is very helpful to have a rounded analysis. I will hand back to the convener.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Fiona Hyslop
I will bring in Dr Hannon, who might want to reflect on any other international comparators, either historical or contemporary.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Fiona Hyslop
Okay. Dr Lowes, did you indicate that you want to come in?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Fiona Hyslop
Thank you. The other area that I want to cover is energy market reform. I come to Dr Hannon first on that. You talked about decoupling gas, for example, when it comes to price setting. I am interested in your views on energy market reform—what is needed and when—and whether we should be shifting to make sure that the energy market is designed to ensure secure, affordable and sustainable energy. If you could unpack the separation of gas from that price setting, that would be helpful as well.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Fiona Hyslop
Good morning, panel, and thank you for joining us. Please feel free to expand on your previous remarks. I am interested in the historical context that we have just heard about from Dr Lowes and that rapid acceleration of electrification, particularly in Scandinavia, in the 1960s and 1970s. Some of us are old enough to remember the 1973 oil crisis, and the very practical implications that it had.
My question is first to Dr Lowes. What can we learn from the speed of the response in the 1960s and 1970s? Indeed, are there any lessons that we should learn from that? What should we expect now?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 30 March 2022
Fiona Hyslop
My second question relates to what we now see on our high streets. I represent West Lothian, which is one of the youngest constituencies in Scotland. We have a lot of hairdressers, beauty salons and so on. The people of West Lothian want to look good, but I also get complaints from some constituents, who say, “Is that all we have?” However, those services provide an experience—they are part of a leisure experience, and they bring people on to the high streets, which means footfall, as they can then buy other things. How should we consider that dimension? That is a very real situation in many towns in Scotland.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 30 March 2022
Fiona Hyslop
Good morning. Thank you for sharing your insight. I am interested in how we might view our approach to the inquiry and the issue of whether we use a deficit model that sees towns as a problem to be solved or an alternative model that sees towns as a solution for modern living. Your perspective that every town is unique and has its own story is relevant in that regard.
What do you see as the role of culture, events, tourism and leisure in relation to the identity aspect that you have been talking about and people’s experience of town centres?
