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 2712 contributions
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Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
UK in a Changing Europe Regulatory Divergence Tracker
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
Maybe we could read that across to renewable energy, to see whether such an approach is possible there. Joël Reland, do you have any thoughts on that?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Scottish Government Resource Spending Review
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
I am thinking about some of the points that the witnesses have made and particularly about some of the creativity that we see in communities, the way that projects are set up and their history and diversity. Does that make it difficult to mainstream a particular model that can be taken to every health board across the country to show what such projects deliver, how to employ consistent monitoring and evaluation and how to develop assessments of the financial savings?
Is there a difficulty in trying to interface a grass-roots movement and grass-roots projects with some of the harder objectives and systems that the NHS, health and social care partnerships or community planning partnerships have? How do we get that creativity in communities interfacing with those who actually have the money in a way that can deliver the objectives in a consistent way?
I ask Robbie McGhee to start off from the perspective of his projects and how they have managed to negotiate that.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
UK in a Changing Europe Regulatory Divergence Tracker
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
That is interesting. When it comes to how that taxonomy is interpreted within the devolution settlement, within the UK and across Europe, where there are sub-state actors that are looking to invest in particular technologies, do you have any thoughts on how that might play out?
We are meeting in Scotland, which has vast renewable resources. If you were to devise a green taxonomy for Scotland, maybe by creating a financial centre for green investment in Edinburgh, what would that look like? Could that exist within an EU taxonomy that is perhaps tilted in a slightly different direction, or which emphasises some technologies over others? Do you have any thoughts on that?
09:15Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
UK in a Changing Europe Regulatory Divergence Tracker
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
The tracker is a really useful tool and a really useful summary for policy makers. It is exciting to hear that you want to overlay some of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and devolution aspects.
The tracker highlights financial services, greening finance and the development of a UK taxonomy. Where do you see potential divergence or alignment with the EU or other countries that are developing their own taxonomies? In the EU, there has been a strong debate about the inclusion of gas and nuclear in its taxonomy. Do you see an inevitable alignment there, given that we face similar energy challenges across Europe, or is there a different tilt or perspective with other countries that might end up getting wrapped up in some of the trade deals that the UK is looking to set up?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
UK in a Changing Europe Regulatory Divergence Tracker
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
I have a final question about the EU emissions trading scheme. I think that you say in your tracker that you expect the scope of that to be significantly widened. Do you see the UK falling into the same scope, or do think that there might be tensions over aviation or other areas?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Scottish Government Resource Spending Review
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
Is there a need for that consistency? You mentioned Inverclyde as an exemplar, but does there need to be guidance on the issue to all health boards or is it the responsibility of community planning partnerships? Should there be an expectation on authorities to do that mapping work and evolve the approach?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Scottish Government Resource Spending Review
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
I see a fuzziness between the boundaries of what projects are doing. They might be delivering objectives in different areas.
I ask Diana Murray for her reflections on that.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Scottish Government Resource Spending Review
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
That is particularly true with areas such as monitoring and evaluation of projects, and trying to share the understanding of how to do that.
I have a final question, which is a bigger one. The Government has a wellbeing economy bill slated to be introduced in this session of Parliament. Do you have any thoughts about that higher level of governance in Scotland and what could be in that bill to support the sort of initiatives that we are talking about? Is it about having the right kind of indicator? Is it about having a commissioner who can look at the needs of future generations? What would be useful to have at a legislative level to help to drive progress in the area and ensure that we do not forget about this work but prioritise it?
Do not worry if you do not have an answer, because there is time for you to feed into the Government consultations, but I am interested to know whether you have any top lines.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
UK in a Changing Europe Regulatory Divergence Tracker
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
To put it simply, the issue is how we utilise the resources and the advantages that we have with energy in Scotland to maximise the opportunities for green investment here and create a focus under a green taxonomy. Does the potential exist for there to be a divergence or a particular emphasis in Scotland under a green investment taxonomy in the UK?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) [Draft]
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
The United Kingdom Climate Change Committee has today called for a “presumption against exploration” in relation to new oil and gas, making the case that renewables investment is the “best way” to tackle the energy price crisis.
I am proud of Scotland’s progress on renewables. Will the First Minister press the UK Government to end its policy of maximum economic recovery and to start listening to the climate science?
