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 2552 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Bob Doris
I appreciate that. I am delighted that I do not have to deal with those complexities. Perhaps getting a flexible timescale to the committee at some point in the future would be helpful to allow us to better understand what is happening.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Bob Doris
I am glad that that work is on-going. I am minded to ask whether, if there is a principle that the running of the energy consents unit will ultimately be cost neutral, there is an anticipation that, whatever funding mechanism is worked out with local authorities to underpin their work in that area, including fees regimes, that work should also be cost neutral to local authorities.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Bob Doris
I suspect that my councillor colleagues would welcome that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Bob Doris
We are doing budget scrutiny, and my briefing pack says that we need to wait for industry to bring forward a pipeline of projects and be clearer about that before we can identify additional resource for public bodies. Is that a budget reality because the pipeline of projects brings investment, which will help to fund those bodies, or is that a strategic thing?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Bob Doris
Okay. Thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Bob Doris
In future, when the commercial sector withdraws and services are tendered and replaced at a subsidised level, would it be worth tracking those subsidies over time? If the partnerships and the franchises are successful, a sustainable model would not see subsidising done in that way. It would be done in a more proactive, strategic way.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Bob Doris
That was helpful. I should note that I spoke about the Government having to tread carefully because of exposure to the public purse, rather than having reluctance, and perhaps that is why there has been a prolonged period of consideration. I suppose that time will tell on that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Bob Doris
I am interested in the line of questioning about ESS looking at systemic issues, because it cannot deal with individual cases. That got me thinking a little more about how SEPA or Scottish Water would do that in the first place. I could be wrong, but I would have thought that, if SEPA or Scottish Water saw a pattern in the complaints coming in and investigations, those public bodies would do significant analysis of that to identify what was systemic in that.
That is vital information to inform ESS before anyone gets to ESS. As we know, complainants have to go through Scottish Water or SEPA in the first place, exhaust all the appeals functions there and then go to ESS. What relationship is developing? We must get to a stage where if, for example, it becomes self-evident that a community group that Dr Fifield supports is dealing with something systemic, that can then be evidenced by work that SEPA or Scottish Water has done in advance. What does that relationship look like?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Bob Doris
Convener, I apologise for asking a question back to Mr Whittle that is probably stating the obvious, but I think that it is important to put it on the record. The deputy convener mentioned a few matters that the Government has taken forward to address the issues of cost. It was either Mr Austin or Shivali Fifield who said that that does not guarantee that that will resolve matters, but the Government is looking at various issues. Can you understand why the Government has been treading carefully on this? The exchanges that Mr Whittle has had with the convener show that the significant exposure of the public purse in all of this has to be a concern. I know that that is not the concern that witnesses here today necessarily want to hear, but there is a significant exposure to Scotland’s budget, depending on how we take some of the reforms forward. Is that a reasonable contention to put on the record, Mr Whittle?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Bob Doris
I know that you want to bring others in, convener. That was quite an extensive answer. I thought that it would, hopefully, be relatively brief. Let us just put that on record.
The deputy convener talked about the Government wanting to enhance non-judicial routes to justice and remedy, the review of protective expenses orders, the exemption of court fees from July 2022 and legal aid reform. I was merely, as part of that conversation, asking whether you appreciate that the Scottish Government has to think about the cost to the Scottish public purse as it takes forward potential reforms. I think that that was quite a straightforward question. I do not think that I actually got an answer to it.
