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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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Mark Ruskell
Is some of the inconsistency down to the interpretation of policy or to politics? Do elected members on some councils dislike onshore wind farms and reject them in the knowledge that the Scottish Government might pick up and reconsider an application on appeal?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Mark Ruskell
I will not ask David Hammond about the politics of his council but, given the aspirations that we now have for renewables, is your LDP fit for purpose? Will the LDP need to go through further revision to create a space for renewables projects? Is it already forward thinking about the targets that have been set and where the council wants to get to?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Mark Ruskell
David Rodger, Aberdeenshire has already been mentioned. Do you have anything to add on your local experience of working with members in LDPs and councils?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Mark Ruskell
Finally, on the national public energy agency, it is still very early days, but one might imagine that, with the development of LHEES and the co-ordination and support that will be needed across the public and private sectors, it will have a role to play in that respect. Have there been any early indications of or discussions about the role that the agency will play? Morag, do you want to take that question?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Mark Ruskell
We have taken evidence on the national planning framework, and there is a major tilt towards the climate and nature emergencies at that high level. I am thinking about how that translates into local development plans, which already exist and will go through a period of review and updating. How fit for purpose are the 32 local development plans across Scotland? Is there enough space and enough policy within those plans to facilitate 12GW of onshore wind or 4GW of solar energy? Are the plans fit for purpose? Is there a gap between what NPF4 says and what is actually in the 32 LDPs?
I ask Morag Watson to start. If you have examples of LDPs that are particularly facilitative of renewable energy, or of ones on which you think there is not enough action, that would be useful.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
High Speed Rail (Crewe-Manchester) Bill
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Mark Ruskell
I will ask about two aspects of the bill that are a bit contentious. One is about the water environment: in effect, the controlled activities regulations are not being applied through the bill, which seems a bit odd. Surely there are not lots of rivers passing through what is quite a small site. The other aspect that I want to ask about is building standards. Are there any risks to the environment or to building users as a result of not adopting those regulations through the bill?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
High Speed Rail (Crewe-Manchester) Bill
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Mark Ruskell
I presume that these would be fairly simple matters, given the size of the site and the nature of the project. For example, would the requirement for the project developer to speak to SEPA really require a huge amount of work to be done?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Mark Ruskell
It is clear that unsustainable and unfair working practices have been allowed to build up across the rail industry over many years. Does the minister agree that that is why having union and passenger voices on the ScotRail board will be so important in future? While passengers wait for the dispute to be resolved, can the minister ensure that no communities—communities such as Dunblane—are disproportionately impacted by the emergency timetable?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill and United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Mark Ruskell
I can confirm that, as the member who is now in charge of the European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill, I will seek a reconsideration stage to ensure that the work of Mr Wightman, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Parliament as a whole is not lost.
The Deputy First Minister made a clear commitment to work closely with stakeholders on amendments to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill. Will he also make a commitment that he will work with me and with stakeholders—COSLA, in particular—on the European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill and that we will have a meeting sooner rather than later to discuss the shape of some of the amendments that might be lodged and what the options might be?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Legislative Consent after Brexit
Meeting date: 19 May 2022
Mark Ruskell
I want to pick up on the final topic, because I have been thinking about Professor Nicola McEwen’s comments about there being an age of former glory in relation to use of the Sewel convention, obviously in very different political times and, as Chris McCorkindale has said, perhaps at a time when it was not being stress tested quite so much.
I am interested in parliamentary scrutiny and in getting thoughts from around the table about whether there is more parliamentary scrutiny now or whether there was more in the past and less today, and about what the opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny might be in future. I see that Professor Page is nodding—you have invited yourself to make the first comment.
