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 2043 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 December 2024
Bob Doris
Mr Linklater, I know that I said that that was my final question, but this one is just for you. Does that maybe provide a rationale for land management plans and community consultation? If they are done properly, ethically, appropriately and professionally, the landowner will work collegiately to build up relationships with those communities and build capacity. Is that potentially a positive outcome of a good-quality land management plan?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 December 2024
Bob Doris
I would presume so. We can clarify that, but I think that it is self-evident from the legislation that the community should be involved in the consultation process.
I will leave it there. Perhaps that is something that the committee will have to return to.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 December 2024
Bob Doris
That was helpful. If SEPA were aware of environmental damage, it would not wait for a formal complaint to investigate that—it would just get on and do that. There are precedents in that respect across the public sector.
Does Laurie Macfarlane have any thoughts on that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 December 2024
Bob Doris
Yes.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 December 2024
Bob Doris
So your view is that there should be no threshold.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 December 2024
Bob Doris
All right, thank you.
Finally, Magnus Linklater, you have mentioned the word “bureaucracy” a few times in relation to a lot of this. The more I hear from Mr Wightman about his views, the more I wonder whether there is a meeting of minds, perhaps unintentionally, about some of this. What are your thoughts?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 December 2024
Bob Doris
Convener, after the follow-up question, do you want me to go on to my next line of questions?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 (Post-legislative Scrutiny)
Meeting date: 28 November 2024
Bob Doris
I appreciate your brevity.
When the Parliament passed the 2017 act, clear planning, reporting and scrutiny frameworks were established. For example, there are three delivery plans that go up to 2030, there is annual reporting to Parliament and this committee has an on-going role in relation to the act, as does Professor Sinclair. Dr Randolph, can you see a connection between that scrutiny framework and actions being taken? Are effective actions being taken because of the scrutiny framework? If so, it would be good to get an example of that.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 (Post-legislative Scrutiny)
Meeting date: 28 November 2024
Bob Doris
That is precisely why I was asking. Do you have anything to add, Mr Birt?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 (Post-legislative Scrutiny)
Meeting date: 28 November 2024
Bob Doris
That is helpful. I note that I am not sweating it; I am thinking about whether, rather than tapering within universal credit for the Scottish child payment, there could be a roll-on, as Mr Dickie suggested. If there is no underlying issue, I am delighted to hear that, but I wanted to check on behalf of my constituents that there is no unintended consequence, which is the right question for the committee to ask.
