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
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Bob Doris
But can you confirm that income—not just price—is a key aspect?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Bob Doris
But we have just spent 10 to 20 minutes talking about affordability, and it was not a moot point then. I agree with everything that you have said. Other members will ask questions about the issue that you have raised, and you will be able to put your points on the record. I will support you when you do so. I totally get the point that you are making, but you are not answering the question that I asked.
I will make one more attempt to ask the question. If you do not want to answer it, that is okay. I am not trying to be rude; I am simply trying to elicit some information that would be helpful to the committee in its inquiry.
The inquiry is about how transport plays a role in child poverty and parental employment. Is the money that is provided by the DWP and the Scottish Government being used strategically, and well enough, in your opinion? That is a reasonable question.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Bob Doris
Mick Hogg, do you want to add anything?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Interests
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Bob Doris
Thank you, convener. It is great to be back on the committee. I have no relevant interests to declare, but, as always, I invite those who wish to do so to look at my register of interests.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Bob Doris
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Bob Doris
I want to put on record my thanks to Paul Finch for bringing us back to the focus of the inquiry, which is child poverty and parental employment. I absolutely get that all three witnesses have been talking about affordability, the quality of the service and the safety of female travellers—a whole variety of things—but the focus of the inquiry is child poverty and parental employment. There are lots of factors in relation to transport in that inquiry.
I again need to put on the record the fact that we could do more on that if, rather than a national minimum wage, we had a real living wage, which would make fares more affordable. I must also say that 69 per cent of children living in poverty are in working households where at least one person is working and that 80,000 children in Scotland are impacted by the United Kingdom Government’s two-child benefit cap.
Before I come to the substantive questions, may I ask the witnesses whether they believe that ending the two-child benefit cap and moving from a national minimum wage to a real living wage would represent a substantive move towards making transport more affordable for parents who are trying to get into work or get more hours in their working day?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Bob Doris
Mr Finch, I do not know whether you will be drawn on that, but I would not be doing my job properly, as an MSP for constituents who are directly impacted by this, if I did not ask the question: would those measures make a difference to the affordability of transport?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Bob Doris
I do not think that that is an answer. Mr White, do you have anything to add?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Bob Doris
My final question is for Mr Hogg, because Mr Finch and Mr White cannot speak for individual bus operators but Mr Hogg can talk from years of experience of the workforce within the railways.
One issue is that we want to have trains that run later, start earlier, or run more frequently. That all comes down to cost but it also comes down to supporting workers’ pay and conditions. Have there been discussions between ScotRail and the RMT about how we could run trains a bit earlier, or later, in a way that is affordable? There will be additional staff costs, but have we started thinking about how we can reshape the railways to be more responsive in supporting children in poverty and parental employment?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Bob Doris
Paul Finch, that relates to rural transport, where there might be gaps in the service. Perhaps it is even more vital to get that co-ordination between rail hubs and lifeline bus routes. Does that partnership work in the more rural parts of the country?
