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 3354 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
Thanks.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
Further to the convener’s point, we have had a response from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities in the inquiry, which is, of course, a broader inquiry that incorporates your report and looks at air quality in a broader sense. That response suggested that councils have been very busy on climate change and perhaps have not prioritised air quality. I am trying to tempt you to comment on leadership. Do you think that there is an issue around leadership in individual councils or across local authorities as a whole in Scotland? It was quite disappointing to get just a one-page letter from COSLA that said that councils have been quite busy and that there are resource issues.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
From where you are sitting right now, does that mean monitoring at every primary school, secondary school and hospital?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
You mentioned the tightening of air quality regulations quite a lot this morning and you alluded to the WHO limits. How do you see them driving targets in Scotland? Will the WHO limits drive European targets? The Scottish Government’s commitment is to stay broadly aligned. Would you expect a process of adopting certain milestones relating to WHO targets or a wider approach that looks at continual improvement? I am trying to get a sense of where you think those targets might be going. Your report is very much about existing targets and existing challenges around governance and creating a governance system that is fit for the future, but I am not quite clear what that future is going to be.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
Does it concern you that Perth and Kinross Council has not issued any FPNs for engine idling ever under that 2003 power?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
It does happen—that is the point.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Air Quality
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
On air quality management, you make the point that air quality has a potential impact on vulnerable people, the elderly and schoolchildren. What should be done about monitoring around those populations, for example at schools and hospitals? What are you looking for the Scottish Government to conclude about what an adequate form of monitoring should be? Should all schools and hospitals be covered by air quality monitoring? Should it be targeted at certain areas? We have not had a response on that from the Government yet, because it is reviewing what the monitoring might look like, but what is your view at the moment? What are you looking to see?
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 25 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
Alongside numerous UK Climate Change Committee reports, the Friends of the Earth report shows us that, without decisive action to reduce the number of cars on the roads, we will not achieve our legally binding targets, which this Parliament voted for. Does the transport minister agree that traffic demand management measures are an essential tool to reduce transport emissions and raise revenue? Will he provide an update on what correspondence ministers have had with the UK Government on the need for such measures?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 20 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
That was very insightful.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 20 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
It has been an interesting evidence session. I go back to the points that were made about community planning partnerships. I am interested in exploring their role in other forms of partnership and in strategically organising and delivering place-based approaches. I was struck by what Kirsty Cumming said about there being a disparity in Scotland in the way that CPPs incorporate culture and cultural organisations in their planning and articulate cultural outcomes. I was interested in what Billy Garrett said about the value of social prescribing and how partnership working is perhaps spreading into health and social care partnerships, and I was also interested in Rebecca Coggins’s point about how we have to work sideways and then up to access the more strategic CPPs.
Can you distil anything from all that in terms of your experiences, what works well with community planning partnerships and how the cultural sector gets its value and its voice into those objectives? Do we need to consider other parts of the architecture of local strategic planning beyond that? It is a big picture, and I am aware through what you have said this morning that culture touches on many different things from community regeneration to social care to everything else. Are CPPs the best vehicle to do that, or should we consider other ways?
