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.
Filter your results Hide all filters
Displaying 685 contributions
|
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 25 November 2021
George Adam
Good for you, Edward.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 25 November 2021
George Adam
I just said “Well done” to Edward for that. That is all that I was suggesting.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 25 November 2021
George Adam
The next election in which that would affect us is not until 2026. If, after consultation, we find that undue influence is a major issue and we decide, as a Government, to go down a similar route to the UK Government, we will add that to our electoral reform bill. I do not believe that there could be a major difference if we do everything that we set out to do.
That goes back to the crux of the matter, which is that the UK Government is changing the playing field, and we are being expected to fall into line. I do not think that that is right and I do not think that you, Ms White—or any other members of this Parliament—should be treated in that way. We need to have an open discussion.
The matter that you have raised is at the very heart of the issue, which is that a bill has been published that the UK Government expects our colleague in Wales and me to just accept. However, on all the issues, my colleague in Wales and I are of the same mind and have agreed a way forward. It is not just about me, George Adam, the Scottish National Party Minister for Parliamentary Business—a Labour member in Wales who is in a similar role to mine has come to the same conclusions.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 25 November 2021
George Adam
At this stage, as I said, I do not even have a draft bill in front of me. We will go through the whole process and take it from there once we have decided the best way in which to make the update valuable. I am happy to bring Iain Hockenhull in, in order—I hope—to back me up.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 25 November 2021
George Adam
What do you mean by “unscheduled”?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 25 November 2021
George Adam
Being the Minister for Parliamentary Business, I know that there are plans and plans. I think that the D day landings were probably easier than getting the programme for government together, given the organisation involved. I am not going to make myself a hostage to fortune on that, but we feel comfortable that we will have something in place in 2023, ready for the elections.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 25 November 2021
George Adam
I hate to sound as though I am repeating myself, but it would add to the confusion, because we are in a five-year period for devolved elections and every three years people would have to reapply. Even if it is a simple application, can you imagine out there, in the real world, being told that you have to reapply to be able to vote? Someone might have managed to get their postal vote sorted out after moving house in a traumatic situation, so the idea of reapplying for it might seem difficult. That is the problem. In effect, voters have to reapply. It would be a new application every three years, as opposed to the current system, which is a continuation of what we have done before.
10:15Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 25 November 2021
George Adam
It is not for me to decide, but I am fundamentally against voter ID. Democracy means that there is a Conservative Government at Westminster and it decides what it does in its jurisdiction.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 25 November 2021
George Adam
It is a concern because, in a busy world, if there are two processes, it is natural that people can get confused. We all know agents in our various political parties who believe that they know the process, but mistakes can be made, so that difference could cause issues.
However, again, I go back to the process that we have had to go through. When we have tried to explain that we think that there is a way of doing things differently, we have more or less been met with, “Speak to the hand,” to use the modern colloquialism. It has been very difficult for us. I am aware that there could be issues, but we believe that we can sort them out in our own bill.
It sounds as though I am repeating myself here, but my Welsh colleague and I had a very long conversation on all aspects of the UK bill and concluded that we would both be going down the route of having our own legislation. Where there are good parts in the UK bill, we will take them, and, where there are parts that we fundamentally disagree with, we will not. The situation could lead to general confusion between the two processes, but we are doing our best to try to ensure, within the powers that we have, that we can deliver for Scotland as my Welsh colleague is trying to deliver for Wales.
Does Iain Hockenhull want to add to that? He is shaking his head. That is unusual—I must have been bang on the money there, convener.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Elections Bill
Meeting date: 25 November 2021
George Adam
Thank you for asking me along to this morning’s meeting, convener.
Elections are governed by a complex series of interconnecting laws. I must stress from the outset that I am not opposed to developing a common approach to elections across the United Kingdom, if there are benefits for voters and administrators in doing so. However, I have to point out that although the UK Government has briefed us on its proposals there has been no collaboration on them. Instead, UK ministers have set out their plans in the expectation that we will fall into line to avoid creating differences between reserved and devolved elections.
To do so would make a mockery of devolution. Scotland has already established a proud record of innovation in electoral law, with the devolved franchise having been successfully extended to 16 and 17-year-olds and foreign nationals. We are also the first nation in the UK to require digital imprints for online campaign material. The Elections Bill’s attempt in effect to replace that regime is not the result of considered discussion about the merits of different approaches, but is an example of the UK Government taking a very broad view of the internet service reservation—a view that we contest.
There are other areas, such as voter identification, postal voting and the Electoral Commission, on which I am concerned about the UK Government’s approach, but I also recognise that the bill contains less contentious proposals on which I have tried to work with the UK Government in the past.
Our legislative consent memorandum is not a refusal to consider reform. I want to take time to assess the proposals in the bill and to hold a public consultation on the best approach next year. That work will inform a Scottish electoral reform bill to be introduced in 2023. It is also worth stressing that the next major devolved election to be held after the UK bill becomes law will be in 2026.
I am happy to answer members’ questions, convener.
