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: 7 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
The petition, which was lodged by Amber Roberts, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to take action to improve the current housing crisis by merging housing associations and local council housing and by considering introducing a new right-to-buy scheme for council tenants. Amber Roberts suggests that merging housing associations with local council housing could help more council houses to become available and result in more than 76,000 council homes being built by 2034. She has also set out a proposal for a right-to-buy scheme that would allow council tenants who have lived in the property for 10 years or more the opportunity to buy their home.
In responding to the petition, the Scottish Government has stated that its
“approach to the planning and delivery of affordable housing, is focussed on providing the ‘right homes in the right place’.”
It has highlighted that
“Housing associations and councils have a long history of ... working in partnership in the delivery of affordable homes”
and has noted that
“Not all councils build new homes, six local authorities have previously transferred all of their housing stock to housing associations.”
Reference is made to the Scottish Government’s own target of delivering
“110,000 affordable homes by 2032, of which at least 70% will be available for social rent”.
It has highlighted that that would
“exceed the number of homes for social rent suggested within the petition”
and that the target would be delivered “within a shorter timeframe”.
That is a lot of houses to be built in 10 years.
The Scottish Government has also stated that it has no plans to reintroduce the right-to-buy scheme, and it has provided details of the support that is available to assist affordable home ownership. That support includes the low-cost initiative for first-time buyers and the open market shared equity scheme.
Do members have any comments or suggestions for action?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 7 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
We thank Amber Roberts and regret that there seems to be nothing more of a practical nature that we can do.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 7 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
That seems a sensible proposition. Are we content with that?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 7 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
PE1961, which seeks to make it a specific offence to assault, threaten or abuse a private hire or taxi driver while at work, has been lodged by Edward Grice on behalf of the Scottish Private Hire Association. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to expand the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021 to include private hire and taxi drivers by creating a specific criminal offence of assaulting, threatening or abusing private hire or taxi drivers while they are engaged in private hire or taxi work and by considering such offences as aggravated when the offence is committed while the driver is enforcing a licensing or operational condition. The SPHA highlights the 2021 act and the creation of a new offence for situations whereby a retail worker is assaulted, threatened or abused while engaged in their work. The SPHA believes that a similar offence is required to protect private hire and taxi drivers while they are at work.
11:45In its response to the petition, the Scottish Government notes that there are a range of common-law and statutory offences to protect everyone, including private hire and taxi drivers, from abuse and violence. Those include the statutory offence of threatening or abusive behaviour, as well as common-law offences of assault and breach of the peace. Do colleagues have any comments or suggestions?
I was struck by the Scottish Government pointing the finger at Daniel Johnson in relation to the development of the 2021 act. I am not quite sure what they thought Mr Johnson’s remedy might be.
Do colleagues have any suggestions as to how we might proceed?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 7 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
I am happy to write to the organisations that you have suggested, but we would do that instead of taking evidence from the petitioner, at this stage. As you suggested, we would write to the SPSO and the Scottish Government.
Are there any other suggestions, or are members content for us to proceed in that way?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
I have resolved not to reach for any other metaphors. I take the point, and we can proceed on the basis that we have described with that understanding.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
In which case, I thank you both very much. Your evidence has been very helpful to our consideration of this distressing petition. Thank you for being present remotely and in person today.
I will suspend the meeting shortly, once members have agreed that we are content to consider the evidence at a subsequent meeting.
Members indicated agreement.
10:58 Meeting suspended.11:03 On resuming—
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Are colleagues content to close the petition, as suggested by Alexander Stewart?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
During your time on the task force, what were the key concerns that were raised regarding the experience of people who use drugs and their current interactions with the justice system?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Mr Strang, you referred to dozens of recommendations in the report. I am sorry that we are not here to do full justice to the report today. The work of the committee has been very much focused on the issues raised in the petition, despite Mr Sweeney’s heroic endeavours to draw out slightly wider evidence, which I am sure is also very useful to the committee. Is there anything that we have not touched on that either you or Carole Hunter would like to add?
