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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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Jackson Carlaw
PE1945, which is on banning the extraction and use of peat in horticulture and all growing media by 2023, was lodged by Elizabeth Otway. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to place a legal ban on the extraction of peat and peat imports, exports and sales in order to protect peatlands in Scotland and worldwide.
Elizabeth Otway states that the Scottish Government’s investment in peatland restoration is undermined by continued extraction and use of peat in horticulture. The call for a 2023 deadline is in line with the UK Climate Change Committee’s recommendation to ban peat extraction, sales and imports by 2023.
The Scottish Parliament information centre briefing notes that the Scottish Government’s commitment to phase out the use of horticultural peat has been made for several years. The UK Government aims to end the retail sale of peat and products containing peat in England and Wales by the end of the current UK Parliament, and by 2028 in the professional horticulture sector.
The Scottish Government’s response indicates that a public consultation will be launched shortly to inform its work in relation to banning the sale of peat-related gardening products, and it has commissioned research on the issue. The Scottish Government states that it is committed to setting a timescale for phasing out peat and to introducing legislation to support that.
In view of that suggestion to us from the Scottish Government, do members have any comments or further suggestions?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Our next petition is PE1856, which was lodged by Pat Rafferty on behalf of Unite the union, on support for the taxi trade. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to protect the future of the taxi trade by providing financial support to taxi drivers; setting up a national stakeholder group with trade union driver representatives; and reviewing the low-emission standards and implementation dates. I am delighted that we are joined this morning by Steven Grant—with audio only, regrettably—on behalf of Unite, representing the petitioner, and by Robert McLean and Murray Fleming on behalf of the Scottish Taxi Federation. Good morning to you all, and welcome to the committee.
We have heard and collated quite a lot of evidence on this subject, so members have a number of questions. If the witnesses are happy for us to do so, we will move straight to those questions. By way of introduction, I will ask a general question. The situation is fluid, as I know from talking to taxi drivers in my local authority, East Renfrewshire; it has moved on even since we last considered the petition a few months ago. Our witnesses might like to outline briefly the main challenges that currently face the taxi industry, given that the situation is now very different from what it was when the petition was submitted in early 2021.
I come to Mr Grant first—because we cannot see you, we will have to hope that you speak up and speak clearly.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Is the committee content with that?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Jackson Carlaw
I am concerned that we are almost out of time, so I suggest that the clerks liaise with our witnesses on some of the areas where it might be helpful to get more detailed evidence and information. I am sure that they will be very happy to co-operate—I will allow them to confirm that in a second.
My final question relates to something that Robert McLean touched on. We asked all local authorities what the effect of the pandemic had been, and about half of them responded. The general response was that in the wake of the pandemic there had been a 20 per cent reduction in the number of available cabs. I have heard that there has been a bit of a recovery from that in my own local authority area, but Mr McLean said that, in Glasgow, the cars are there but the drivers are not. It has been suggested to me that some local authorities are underresourced when it comes to processing applications from those interested in becoming drivers.
Mr McLean, can you confirm that you are happy to provide further information on that? When you say that you have the cars but not the drivers, is that a question of the attractiveness of the proposition or is it about the time that it takes people who want to enter the profession to get a licence?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Mr Grant, do you have any final comments that you would like to make on behalf of the petitioner?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Jackson Carlaw
That was very comprehensive, and you have touched on a number of issues that we want to explore. Mr Fleming, would you like to add anything further to Mr McLean’s comments?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Jackson Carlaw
I will come to the witnesses in a minute, because I want to explore this area, too.
What sort of reception have you had from Glasgow City Council with regard to exploring your arguments? The comprehensive if technical arguments that you have been making about the availability of vehicles relate to specification as well as the structure of the financial support for the alternatives that you think would be best. I say that as someone who spent 25 years in the Scottish retail motor industry and who found from time to time that, with regard to technical specifications—this was a real issue—the associated difficulties and practicalities were not always understood by policy makers, who were keen to drive towards a particular objective. Like Mr Sweeney, I am interested in knowing with whom the discussions are taking place and how you feel the arguments are being received.
Mr Grant, you might want to touch on that and the previous question.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Mr McLean and Mr Fleming, do you want to respond to Mr Sweeney’s question and my codicil?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Jackson Carlaw
We will therefore write to organisations involved in order to do that and ask the Parliament’s engagement team to develop a programme for us. Are members happy for that to happen?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Would members like us to visit anywhere in particular, bearing in mind that, given our timetables, any visit is not likely to happen until the new year, or is the committee happy for the engagement team to come back to us?
