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
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Bob Doris
I am in your hands, convener. We are half way through a line of questioning by Liam Kerr that raises additional questions on which I would like clarity, which is why I would like to ask some questions under this agenda item.
Minister, I can well imagine the fake outrage, had the Scottish Government withdrawn this set of regulations, brought in others and tried to bulldoze those through the DPLR Committee and this committee before recess. Some people in this room, who are now criticising our putting these regulations through, would express absolute outrage if the Government sought to bulldoze through other regulations. I leave that sitting there and go to my substantive question.
You have a meeting tomorrow with Rebecca Pow. Can you confirm that the UK Government does not have a power of veto over individual statutory instruments and regulations that the Scottish Government brings to the Parliament? That would be quite helpful.
However, I take it that you take cognisance of what UK ministers say. Is it possible that, following discussions with Rebecca Pow tomorrow, the final details of what is in a fresh statutory instrument might change slightly, depending on those discussions? If they might, it would not make sense to withdraw these regulations, bring in fresh ones, then bring in a third set further down the line.
I want to know a little more about that meeting tomorrow with Rebecca Pow, because it would be crazy to have three different sets of regulations going about, as some on the committee might anticipate.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Bob Doris
Thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Interests
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Bob Doris
Good morning, convener, and thank you for having me. As is customary on such occasions, I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which is publicly available on the Parliament’s website. However, I do not need to draw the committee’s attention to anything in particular. I am glad to be joining you for this morning’s evidence session.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Bob Doris
I will be brief, as Mr Ruskell has made some of the comments that I wanted to make.
Somewhere during our robust scrutiny session, the point about the progress made in working with business got a little bit lost in amongst all the process. Mr Ruskell has put that on record pretty well. Having listened to colleagues and having asked lots of questions, I believe that this matter would benefit from more scrutiny, not less. A fresh set of regulations and a statutory instrument returning in September for scrutiny would be no bad thing for the committee and the Parliament. Supporting this statutory instrument is the way of securing that and of making sure that we do not have a scheme that starts in August—which, after all, would not be possible.
As for what Mr Kerr has just said—and I note that he tried to be conciliatory in his remarks—there have been many opportunities over the past three years for the UK Government to raise its concerns, but it did not do so until the past few weeks. We should not lose sight of that when we look at why we are in this situation. It needs to be put on the record, yet again: the requirement for a further set of regulations and further statutory instruments lies squarely at the door of the UK Government.
That said, I think that the statutory instrument that the committee has to pass is perfectly competent. If I were to be invited back to the committee in September to scrutinise the new set of statutory instruments, I would look forward to it.
11:30Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Bob Doris
To be clear, there have been discussions through a common framework between the four nations over the past three years where it was hoped that there would be maximum alignment in relation to labelling, container size and the deposit, but at no point in those three years, despite the hope to get alignment, did the UK Government ever raise any issues about any of those things up until very recently. Is that right?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 7 June 2023
Bob Doris
So, convener—
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 7 June 2023
Bob Doris
Well, it is relevant to the regulations.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 7 June 2023
Bob Doris
I know, but we are here to scrutinise the regulations. Another issue that I have experienced is that universities have been reluctant to accept students with temporary leave to remain but an uncertain future because they might not be able to guarantee that they can finish their course. That might be a thing of the past now, but is the minister aware of that as having been an issue previously? Should that be an issue?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 7 June 2023
Bob Doris
Okay. Thank you.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 7 June 2023
Bob Doris
Minister, it is interesting that you mention being here a few weeks ago, because I want to go back to the future a little bit. When I was first elected, in 2007, a young constituent of mine in Sighthill who was originally from Mogadishu in Somalia could not go to university because of the rules and regulations at the time. I made representations to the then Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, Fiona Hyslop, and regulations were put in place to allow young people from asylum-seeking families to go to university. This is something that we have fixed and dealt with appropriately previously. Unfortunately, through the passage of time, we have not been as attentive to the legislation as we should have been, to make sure that future generations of young people who are in the asylum process can have their right to an education.
Will the new regulations be kept under review to make sure that we do not find ourselves in that back-to-the-future position again, given that the Scottish Government previously did the right thing and my constituent was the first asylum-seeking under-18 to go to university in Scotland with a fully funded place?
