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 1621 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Fiona Hyslop
Thank you. The culture investment in Paisley has been—
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Fiona Hyslop
In relation to architects and designers, as opposed to planners, how do we best get that connection in a proactive way? What needs to be done professionally or organisationally?
11:00Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Fiona Hyslop
We can see that happening in cities where there might be the scale to allow it. How can it happen in our predominantly small-town Scotland?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Fiona Hyslop
Does Adrian Watson have any comments about that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Fiona Hyslop
The petition is about post-legislative scrutiny of the 2012 act, and I am not sure that the committee needs to complete such scrutiny. However, as members will know from getting such cases—I declare an interest because, as I previously indicated when we took evidence from Registers of Scotland, I have a constituency case that relates to the subject of the petition—they are very severe when they arise. The issue is what happens when there are errors, the process for dealing with that and the number of complaints that are received about errors.
Now that we have a commitment that Registers of Scotland will provide regular updates, we should pursue the question of what happens when errors are communicated to it, how those errors are dealt with and, in particular, how complaints are dealt with. We cannot ignore the fact that all constituency MSPs will have had such concerns raised with them. The issue is about the title of a person’s house, which is fundamental. That is different from carrying out post-legislative scrutiny of the 2012 act.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Fiona Hyslop
We have a climate crisis, but we also have a cost of living crisis, which is being made worse by energy price increases. I assume that you take responsibility for protecting consumers from the severe energy price increases, which we have heard will increase fuel poverty and have already done so, through the price cap increase. Therefore, there is pressure in the short term to take action.
Bearing in mind the fact that the UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility indicated that there was £20 billion headroom in the spring statement, what are you doing to press the Treasury and other departments to provide more immediate support, rather than waiting to see what happens after October to help protect families?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Fiona Hyslop
I will pass back to the convener, now. A number of members have questions and I know that you have a tight deadline, minister.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Fiona Hyslop
The evidence that we have heard is that the action that has been taken already should be recognised, but rather than waiting to see what happens in the autumn, can measures be introduced now, as opposed to waiting until the winter, when we know that people will absolutely be suffering? That is the message that we have heard from other witnesses and we want to relay that to you.
The other issue is the energy market and how it has—or has not—performed. You seem to be quite optimistic about the state of it. That is not necessarily what we have heard from other witnesses. We heard yesterday from Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, which was clear that there are a number of measures that it would like to take. Your proposed energy security bill seems to be more focused on supply security than on consumer protection. Are you prepared to implement the measures that Ofgem proposes—it must have proposed them to you—to allow it to step in in certain areas and be more severe in ensuring that companies protect individual consumers, and to shift the balance from protecting suppliers to protecting consumers?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 10 May 2022
Fiona Hyslop
What about a legal obligation to replace a pre-payment meter?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Price Rises
Meeting date: 10 May 2022
Fiona Hyslop
In an energy price crisis, the balance might need to shift from the companies to the consumers. I will leave it there. I think that you said that you will get back to me.
Neil Kenward, as Brexit proceeds, the Great Britain and European Union energy markets remain closely aligned. I do not know whether you heard President Macron’s speech. He is looking at the potential for wider alignment of non-EU European countries, particularly on defence and energy. We heard from Scottish Power and other suppliers that sufficient domestic energy market reform to deliver what you have talked about could take place without the need for wider EU reform—although I suspect that there will be wider reform of GB and EU energy markets. What opportunities and challenges are there in the short term and, strategically, in future?
