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 1699 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Claire Baker
What about the areas that are not covered by SOSE and HIE? We have heard that—
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Claire Baker
Our next item of business is consideration of petition PE1676 on the Land Registration etc (Scotland) Act 2012, which has been referred to the committee under rule 15.6 of standing orders.
The petition is continued from the previous parliamentary session, and was lodged by Tony Rosser in 2017. As is outlined in members’ papers, the petition seeks a review of the Land Registration etc (Scotland) Act 2012. The petition focuses on two issues: the relationship between the statutory cadastral map showing the legal boundaries to registered land and property, which is maintained by Registers of Scotland, and the Ordnance Survey map on which the cadastral map is based; and on what supporting materials should be required when submitting an individual application for registration of land and property.
The petition was previously considered by the session 5 Public Audit and Post-Legislative Scrutiny Committee. In December, this committee sought an update from the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth on the Scottish Government’s position on the issues that are raised in the petition. I refer members to the minister’s response, which is included as an annexe to the paper. The minister confirms that the Scottish Government’s position has not changed since the petition was previously considered.
In advance of today’s meeting, Mr Rosser submitted some additional information in response to the minister’s update; that information has been circulated to members. I thank Mr Rosser for taking the time to make that submission and I appreciate his reasons for lodging the petition.
Do members have any comments on how the committee should approach the petition?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Claire Baker
Good morning, and welcome to the 13th meeting in 2022 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. We have received apologies from Colin Smyth. Fiona Hyslop will join us later, as she has another commitment.
Our first item of business is to continue evidence gathering for our town centres and retail inquiry. The broad theme for today is keeping town centres alive, with a focus on town centre living and property stock. I welcome our panel: Euan Leitch, chief executive of SURF—Scotland’s Regeneration Forum; Stephen Lewis, vice-chair of the Scottish Property Federation; Craig McLaren, director of the Royal Town Planning Institute in Scotland; and Adrian Watson, chair of the Association of Town and City Management. Thank you for joining us.
As always, it will be helpful if members and witnesses can keep their questions and answers concise. Each witness should understand that they will not be invited to answer every question, but they will all have the opportunity to contribute at some point.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Claire Baker
No other members have comments.
Given what has been said, I think that it is the committee’s decision to close the petition. I recognise the very difficult situation that Mr Rosser has experienced, and I know how disappointed and frustrated petitioners can be when a petition is closed without the resolution that they seek. However, I assure Mr Rosser that the committee takes its role in scrutinising the work of the keeper of the registers of Scotland seriously. As others have said, we have given a commitment to receiving regular updates from and holding regular witness sessions with the keeper. When we speak to the keeper in the future, we will keep on our agenda the issues and concerns that Mr Rosser has raised.
We now move into private session.
11:17 Meeting continued in private until 11:44.Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Claire Baker
That is quite a big issue to bring up at the end of the session. We will reflect on that.
Earlier, I asked about master plans, which come from the 2019 act. The submissions from Stephen Lewis and Craig McLaren refer to masterplan consent areas. Craig McLaren’s submission says that they have been used for housing developments but could be used for town centres. Will you explain a bit more about that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Claire Baker
I thank all the witnesses for offering their time, which is very much appreciated.
I will briefly suspend the meeting to allow the witnesses to leave.
11:11 Meeting suspended.11:11 On resuming—
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Claire Baker
The committee sees that it is not working. I do not want to comment on Stirling Council’s decision, but approval was given for the out-of-town development near its city centre. You expressed in your submission that there is no enforcement of the principle or clear understanding of what it means.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Claire Baker
Is that what Ireland did?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Claire Baker
Stephen Lewis, do you want to come in and talk about masterplan consent areas? I think that they formed part of the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, but I do not think that they have been introduced in any areas yet. Is that correct?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Town Centres and Retail
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Claire Baker
I have a couple of closing questions. Economic development has been mentioned. Has Euan Leitch had experience of working with the enterprise agencies to support regeneration? We are due to hear from them soon, as part of our inquiry. What other national agencies support the regeneration that is needed? We had Communities Scotland, but it came to an end in 2008. Do the enterprise agencies play that national role?
