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 1926 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Delivering Scottish Social Security
Meeting date: 30 November 2023
Bob Doris
That was short and sweet.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 30 November 2023
Bob Doris
Thank you, cabinet secretary. We move to questions from Marie McNair.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Delivering Scottish Social Security
Meeting date: 30 November 2023
Bob Doris
Dr Witcher, that is very kind of you. I should reassure you that we are not looking for unpaid consultancy or expert advisory work.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 30 November 2023
Bob Doris
I have one final financial question. It is not directly related to the bill but is about the financial exposure that is caused by demand-led budgeting within social security, which the new Scottish benefit will be subject to. You said that your officials are in contact with the IIAC and the DWP about long Covid in connection with current benefits. Does that include any modelling of the financial exposure for the Scottish Government over any agency agreements, if the DWP was to accept those? That is the first part of my question.
What horizon-scanning work is the Scottish Government doing? You can set that out in writing if you want to, cabinet secretary. Without pre-judging what any new eligibility might look like, what future financial exposure do you anticipate for the Scottish Government? I am mindful that, if Scotland does the right thing—as we absolutely should do—but the UK does not change anything, that will increase pressure on the Scottish budget. That is not directly connected to the financial memorandum to this bill, but there is definitely a correlation between the aspirations of this bill and the financial exposure of the Scottish budget and Scottish Government. Is there anything more that you can say about that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Delivering Scottish Social Security
Meeting date: 30 November 2023
Bob Doris
I think that it does answer it. The important thing is that you have laid out quite clearly not just the limitations but the opportunities going forward, and you have just left that comment about the relationship with DWP officials hanging. That absolutely needs to be developed.
However, I will not explore that further, because we have a ream of colleagues who want to ask questions, and I do not want to dominate the session. I call Jeremy Balfour.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 November 2023
Bob Doris
I apologise, convener. I feel as though I am nudging back slightly. I want to ask a little more about Ms Christensen’s aspirations to have an additional target or an additional part of the circular economy strategy, so I would like to turn to her in the first instance.
Ms Christensen, you have a very clear ask of the legislation, which does not always happen—quite often we hear about matters in general terms. It is to ensure
“the highest standards of environmental and human rights due diligence in Scottish supply chains”
and public procurement. I could not possibly disagree with any of that wording, but if it were to appear in the bill it would be reasonable to ask who should determine what a just supply chain looks like and how that would be monitored. I am interested in how we could monitor that and measure compliance with it.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 November 2023
Bob Doris
That is a helpful answer, although it could be considered aspirational. That is not a criticism; I might be sympathetic to what you are suggesting.
As for reporting on the strategy every five years, the Government would be criticised if it had a strategy and did not measure its progress against it. Would you expect it to take reasonable steps or appropriate measures to meet those goals? Would it have to have regard to the variety of international frameworks that are out there? Could you put a wee bit more meat on the bones on that?
Just in case I do not get back in for a follow-up question, convener, may I sneak in a second point? Ms Christensen, I know that that is a big ask. I am not asking you to flesh out the whole approach, but perhaps you could give us an idea of what it might look like. Would it extend simply to the Scottish Government and its agencies on procurement, or would you like to see reporting and due diligence done in the whole of corporate Scotland?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 November 2023
Bob Doris
The evidence is quite clear about the chilling effect of the internal market act. I am not going to draw you into the politics of it—that is not the purpose of my question. I want to highlight that, in October, which was just last month, a significant number of environmental organisations and Scottish non-governmental organisations wrote to the UK Government because they are deeply concerned about the implementation and operation of the internal market act. They suggested that there should be a qualified automatic exemption for public health and the environment. In other words, those two sectors should not have to go through the current processes under the internal market act. Would that seem a reasonable adjustment to make that could empower the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament to do some of the things that we would all like to see done?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 November 2023
Bob Doris
I deliberately tried to take all the politics out of the issue, so I will ignore the point about whether a future UK Government might be more sympathetic to the environmental aspirations of the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament in relation to the circular economy. Do other witnesses believe that there should be a qualified automatic exemption to the internal market act in relation to public health and the environment, irrespective of who is in charge at Westminster? It would be quite helpful to know that. Environmental groups and Scottish NGOs—not politicians—are saying that, so do other witnesses agree?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 November 2023
Bob Doris
Thanks very much.
