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 2695 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
Road Improvements
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Mark Ruskell
I am sure that there is not a single member in the Parliament who has not been affected directly or indirectly by a tragic road accident over the years. In that spirit, I looked forward to a genuine debate about the actions that the Government can take to save lives on the A9 and the A96, from improving dangerous junctions to rolling out the use of average speed cameras. However, instead, we have seen an attempt to use recent accidents to bolster the case for dualling every inch of the A9 and the A96, without any analysis of why accident rates have worsened recently or how those accidents could have been prevented in the first place.
It is important that we go back to the basics. According to Transport Scotland, the case for the A9 dualling project was largely an economic one—it was about reducing journey times between Inverness and Perth—and the secondary benefits of reducing driver frustration and the severity, if not the frequency, of accidents came later. As members have said, there have been calls from communities along the A9 over many years to improve dangerous junctions and reduce speed.
Those priorities are reflected in the Bute house agreement, which commits the SNP and the Greens to addressing and tackling safety concerns on our roads while, at the same time, responding to community needs and delivering on our climate ambitions across Scotland. Investment should be directed where it is most needed and where it can make a real, tangible difference.
I accept that targeted improvements are needed, and, over a decade ago, I was proud to back the campaign to improve the dangerous Ballinluig junction on the A9. Every time I drive through that junction, I think back to how dangerous it was and I think about how many lives have been saved as a result of that investment. The community in Dunkeld and Birnam still live, with a high-speed junction that is confusing and dangerous, and I back their calls for investment in a safer junction, speed reduction, better signage and other measures. I look forward to the meeting that the minister will convene with local members on those issues next week.
However, as with the original problem at Ballinluig, those problems are made even more critical because of the high speeds that vehicles travel at on dualled sections of the road. Let us not forget that the continuously dualled section of the A9 between Perth and Dunblane has also had tragic junction accidents that have required further sustained investment over many years. Simply dualling is not a panacea to address deep-seated accident and road safety issues on our roads. An evidence-led approach is required.
With the A96, the Government’s review provides a chance to look afresh at what investments are genuinely needed on that corridor, including in public transport. That is embedded in the Bute house agreement. I have my doubts that that review will conclude that dualling every last inch of that road is the best option for safety for communities or for the climate.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Mark Ruskell
I am happy for what I have said to sit as a comment.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Ferry Services Inquiry
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Mark Ruskell
Could you explain a bit more about your experience of being involved in that tender process?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Mark Ruskell
Good. It is an important entry point to have that discussion within communities.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Mark Ruskell
What have been the practical impacts of the exclusion of those flights up to this point? How has that affected the functioning of the ETS, its effectiveness or revenue raising?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Ferry Services Inquiry
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Mark Ruskell
If there is that wider experience, it would be useful to understand the reasons.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Mark Ruskell
Yes. Community-wide approaches are needed in this particular area, and it is important that RSLs, councils and others have the ability to drive this in order to get the scale of roll-out that we need in our communities. The mechanisms in question will enable funding to come in and achieve that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Mark Ruskell
I will make a brief comment. I think that, to make progress in the area, we will need community approaches, and it is important that funding mechanisms are available to registered social landlords and the public sector in order to establish heat networks. Understandably, a lot of the focus at the moment is on individual households getting assistance and applying for finance, but I think that it will be some of the broader, community-wide approaches that will crack the nut with regard to retrofitting and decarbonisation. I do not have any specific comments on the SSI beyond saying that we need to accelerate the work.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Mark Ruskell
Okay.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Mark Ruskell
Okay. My other question is around associated work that councils might be thinking of doing as they implement the regulations. One area might be around the designation of loading bays, where there might have been calls from the community for a long time to put a loading bay in place. This legislation brings that to a head, because the ability to pay and park will be taken away, quite rightly. I am wondering where councils are up to with that. Is there a need to push through a lot of traffic regulation orders on loading bays at the moment, or is there other associated work that councils are having to think through when they consider how to make communities work?
