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 3226 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Replacing European Union Structural Funds
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
That exhausts questions from members. I have a few more to wind up, but not too many, and I will give you the final word, secretary of state.
Following on from John Mason’s question about inflation, I note that the prospectus for the levelling up fund, which was published in March 2021, explained that
“Once funding awards are decided, relevant local institutions are responsible for their delivery.”
It states:
“Further contributions from the Fund will not be provided to meet cost overruns after funding has been agreed.”
That was in March last year. Is there an update on that position? You seemed to hint in your answer that there is a possibility of flexibility. We are now in a situation in which we could face 7 per cent inflation, and I am concerned about sustainability. We do not want to have projects that are 80 or 90 per cent complete and end up with white elephants because there is no money available to finish them. It would not help the UK Government, local authorities, the Scottish Government or whoever if that was the case.
Are you telling us that that position has softened? You talked about fiscal discipline, which we all accept is important. However, are you saying that that is no longer written in tablets of stone, as it appears to have been in March last year? I appreciate that the inflationary situation may not have been envisaged a year ago. We might say to people that they just have to manage 2 per cent inflation, but we are getting to 7 per cent, and who knows what the impact of today’s conflict will be? How will that be managed?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Replacing European Union Structural Funds
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
I think that that is an important caveat. In effect, you are saying that you will look on an individual, project-by-project basis to see whether an increase is justified in certain circumstances.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Replacing European Union Structural Funds
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
We are now at the end of February and the fund is going to start from April, but the Scottish Government still says that there has been no consultation or meaningful engagement. That is echoed by other devolved Administrations. Why would they be saying that? If there is going to be constructive engagement, why has it been left so late—to the 12th hour, if you like?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Replacing European Union Structural Funds
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Again, I find your answer very positive, but my concern is that, up to today, with the UK shared prosperity fund about to launch in a matter of weeks, those organisations have not been kept up to date. Obviously, they have to be able to fund projects and they worry that there will be gaps and breaks in funding. Can you assure us that that will not happen?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Replacing European Union Structural Funds
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
A local authority chief executive brought a question to me. He is keen to know how you anticipate levelling up will influence other local authority investment decisions, outwith the levelling up funds and the UK shared prosperity fund.
Concerns have been expressed that, unless levelling up becomes a cross-cutting policy, regional inequality will not be addressed. If two or three UK sites are deemed suitable for a specific type of investment—I was going to give an example, but I will not mention it just now unless you specifically ask me to—what weighting will levelling up carry? For example, will a priority 1 area always be approved over a priority 2 area? In the first disbursement of levelling up funds, five of the eight projects were in priority 1 areas and three were not. How will we ensure that the money goes to where it is most needed?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Replacing European Union Structural Funds
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
If only you were a Highlands and Islands MSP, Ross, that would have been a great victory for you.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Replacing European Union Structural Funds
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Okay. In today’s discussions, you have touched on things such as education, ferries and local government, all of which are devolved. As you will know, education, along with the legal system, was part of the Act of Union 1707, which preserved Scotland’s unique education system. However, we know that, for example, a £559 million adult numeracy fund will be managed by the Department for Education across the United Kingdom. Is that a first since 1707? Maybe I am just not aware of it, but my understanding was that, on such matters, you might allocate funding to Scotland, but the decision would be made here in Scotland.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Replacing European Union Structural Funds
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
It is about the funding being managed by the UK Government, not the funding being allocated.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Replacing European Union Structural Funds
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Thank you very much for that. That is very positive.
We have 30 seconds of our 90 minutes left. As I said I would a minute or two ago, secretary of state, I will allow you to make any further points that you wish to make before we conclude the meeting.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Replacing European Union Structural Funds
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Good afternoon and welcome to the seventh meeting in 2022 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We have one item on today’s agenda, which is to take evidence on the replacement of European Union structural funds and levelling up from the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP. We have up to 90 minutes for the session.
I warmly welcome the secretary of state to the committee. Good afternoon, Mr Gove. I understand that you do not wish to make any opening remarks, so we will move straight to questions, if that is okay with you.
