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 2228 contributions
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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?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Bob Doris
I welcome Anna Ritchie Allan, executive director of Close the Gap; Tony Higgins, president of the Professional Footballers Association Scotland; Ian Tasker, chief executive of Scottish Hazards; and Professor Andrew Watterson, occupational and environmental health researcher at the University of Stirling. Thank you for helping us with our scrutiny of the bill.
As I said to the first panel, we are not trying to deter anyone from speaking, but if all four of you want to make the same point, you might want to indicate that. We do not always have to hear that, but we appreciate that sometimes you will want to get things on the record, so please do so when you need to.
I will start with a general question, as I did with the first panel. Would the bill give SEIAC, if it is established, the right balance between scientific expertise and other interests that are important when reaching decisions in relation to the benefit? If not, what changes are desirable, and why?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Bob Doris
Katy Clark, do you have any more questions?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Bob Doris
Time is almost upon us. I forgot to say this to the first panel, but if there is anything burning within you that you feel you have to get into the Official Report before I close this evidence session, you now have the opportunity to raise it now—as long as it is brief, of course.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Bob Doris
I am pleased that I nudged you, because I have inspired Mike Corbett to come in.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Bob Doris
Katy Clark, do you want to follow up on any of that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Bob Doris
Anna Ritchie Allan, you have come back to the theme of the glacial pace of progress for female workers time and time again. Is there anything that SEIAC could do to speed up the pace of that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Bob Doris
Paul O’Kane, this is your line of questioning. Do you want to follow up on that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Bob Doris
Do you want to say any more about that, Mr Tasker? I am not remotely trying to be awkward, but the member in charge of the bill, Mr Griffin, will give evidence to the committee and say why he has opted for that number. You have had a discussion with Mr Griffin, and you think that the number is about right. What persuaded you of that? We will need to ask Mr Griffin the same question.
