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
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
I am happy for us to take that forward.
We are content to keep the petition open and proceed on the basis that has been set out. I thank the petitioner for the time that they took in speaking to us, as well as last week’s witnesses, who helped to inform our discussion.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
PE1896, which has been lodged by Callum Isted, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to replace the disposable water bottle that is provided with primary school lunches with a sustainable reusable metal bottle.
During our previous consideration of the petition, we were fortunate to hear from Callum personally—as members will recall, he was the youngest ever petitioner to present to the Scottish Parliament. We have to thank him not just for his evidence but for the fact that his petition was specifically cited in relation to the powering change award that the committee, as a mover and shaker of the year, subsequently received from Holyrood magazine.
Callum explained why reusable water bottles are important and told us about his campaign work, which included an impressive fundraising exercise. The committee agreed to write to the First Minister, whom Callum met, to ask what action she intends to take in order to fulfil the ask of the petition.
I regret to say that we have not received a response to our representations from the First Minister on the petition, and I understand that Callum is waiting for an update from the First Minister, too. I thank Callum again for his evidence and the time that he has taken over his petition. Do members have any comments or suggestions as to how we might proceed?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
The Deputy First Minister, in identifying that the intention was to exclude arrangements where there was no exercise of public function, is compromised slightly when it is clear that it simply may not be possible to establish one way or another the reason for a child’s stay at Fornethy. In the light of what Mr Whittle says and the further evidence that we have received, do colleagues have any suggestions as to how we might proceed?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Do members agree to take that forward? We would invite the clerks to draft a response for us to consider along those lines based on the evidence that we have gathered from a number of sources on that point.
It would be unusual, but I will let Mr Whittle back in; you are not here to assist us in our deliberations but merely to lobby us as we consider them.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
We will carry on the petition at our convenience.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
PE1962, which was lodged by Lynn and Darren Redfern, is on stopping motorhomes parking overnight outwith formal campsites, caravan parks and aires. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to improve licensing enforcement on motorhomes to ensure that they park only in designated and regulated locations.
Lynn and Darren explain that motorhomes place an unnecessary burden on local communities when they park outwith formal spaces, with the disposal of rubbish, chemical toilets and dirty water. The Scottish Government has responded to the petition highlighting the rural tourism infrastructure fund, which has helped with the provision of facilities and with addressing issues of irresponsible waste disposal. It also highlights newly revised NatureScot guidance for land managers on off-road parking and positive awareness-raising work by the visitor management group.
The Scottish Government states that it believes that the current response to the increasing use of motorhomes is “sufficient”, and points to feedback that
“campervans have been managed better in 2022 than in previous years”.
Therefore, it does not believe that
“introducing a formal requirement to use specific sites”
would address
“the challenges outlined in the petition.”
Do members have any comments or suggestions for action on the petition?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
That brings us to the end of the meeting. Thank you all very much. We will meet again on 7 December.
Meeting closed at 12:10.Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
You are just here to speak to the petition. Do colleagues have any recommendations for how we might proceed?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
I would certainly be willing for the committee to try to tease out an explanation. Transport for London deals with tens of millions of people using the system. The Glasgow pilot is referred to as being useful but not necessarily cost-effective on a commercial basis, which may reflect the numbers involved in relation to the cost of setting it up. I do not know. Any citizen of Glasgow who travels abroad is surprised at how far behind the smart technology is in the largest city in Scotland. There is more that we could tease out in relation to that.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
It strikes me as peculiar that we have introduced barrier technology at a series of stations but that we cannot programme the barriers to be pay as you go. I would not have thought that that was impossible.
Who should we try to pursue these issues with? Meanwhile, we should write to the Scottish Government to clarify whether Scottish Rail Holdings Ltd is covered by the consumer duty legislation. If it considers that SRHL is not covered, we should ask what action it proposes to take to ensure that it is. It would be a deficiency if it is not.
I was also struck by what Mr Eckton said in his latest submission about how easy it is to miss the advertising on fares. We should ask SRHL about the action that it is taking to ensure that people can easily identify that. I would be very interested to know what advertising it does and how it evaluates whether that advertising has been successful.
Are there any other thoughts or comments?
