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 1980 contributions
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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 21 June 2022
Graham Simpson
That is good. That would be useful.
You are right about the Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Bill. I had a quick look at it. It is quite daunting, but we will get stuck in and do a proper job on it.
My area of questioning is on something that you mentioned earlier: the frustration that you and your officials feel about having very little time to scrutinise UK bills. We have found the same thing with Scottish bills. We had a case of that last week, with the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill. The day before the stage 3 debate, the committee received a letter telling us about possible new powers relating to the establishment of a food commissioner. We had no time to consider that.
As you said earlier, today the committee will look at the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill following stage 2. Stage 3 amendments have to be laid by noon today, but we are discussing the bill only at this meeting. If the committee decided that there should be an amendment, we would, by the end of the meeting, have less than an hour in which to produce one. That is not acceptable, is it?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 21 June 2022
Graham Simpson
We do not set the timescale—you do. Things need to improve; we should not be in this position.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 21 June 2022
Graham Simpson
The committee has not seen that yet.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 21 June 2022
Graham Simpson
My question is not about policy but about giving the committee enough time to deal with whatever is in front of it. I have not mentioned the policy behind the bill.
10:15Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 21 June 2022
Graham Simpson
Lovely, thank you.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 21 June 2022
Graham Simpson
I was talking about not the UK Government, but you, Mr Adam.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Graham Simpson
I do not particularly want you to, but—
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Graham Simpson
The DPLR Committee said that the default position should be the affirmative procedure. It did not completely rule out the made affirmative procedure, but it recommended that certain things should be put in place if that procedure is to be used. That was the purpose of amendments in my name that you have voted against, Mr Mason, despite saying that you agree with me.
Given that the committee rejected those amendments, I will not move the amendments in my name in this group and force a vote. However, I am keen to work with the cabinet secretary—if he is up for it; it is up to him—to see whether we can improve things in the area. I make that offer.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Graham Simpson
In listening to what you have said about Mr Whittle’s amendment 4, I wonder whether there is room to work with Mr Whittle to improve the amendment for stage 3. You have commented that you feel that it is too restrictive at the moment, but maybe it could be improved.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Graham Simpson
I am sure that alarm bells were ringing in the cabinet secretary’s head when Mr Kerr said, “I am trying to be helpful,” but in this case I think that he actually was trying to be helpful.
I have six amendments in the group: amendments 13 to 18. I will be extremely brief, because I know that the committee is up against the clock—I suspect that you will be sitting long into the night on this one.
Amendments 13 to 15 seek to remove sections 8 to 10. I will come to amendments 16 to 18 in a moment.
Section 8 gives ministers the power to make
“regulations ... relating to the continuing operation of an educational establishment for a specified period.”
Oliver Mundell has spoken extensively about that power, which will give ministers powers to close schools. It is a sweeping power with far-reaching consequences.
In my view, closing schools has, in some cases, been harmful. If we were ever to go down that route again, it should involve proper scrutiny. If we were to do that, we should use primary legislation, which can be taken through at pace but would allow for at least some of the severe implications to be explored. That is the route that we should go down, which is why I seek to remove that specific power from the bill altogether.
However, assuming that the committee will not agree to that, I am very much persuaded by the series of amendments from Oliver Mundell and Stephen Kerr, and I recommend them to the committee.
Section 9, which I also seek to remove, gives ministers the power to
“require a relevant manager of a school boarding establishment to take ... steps to restrict or prohibit access to the establishment for a specified period”.
The same argument applies: that is a sweeping power, and the consequences could potentially be severe.
I said that I would be brief, and I am being brief. I move to section 10, which gives ministers powers over student accommodation that would enable them to “restrict ... access” to such accommodation or close it down. The same arguments apply to all three sections that I have highlighted, and I think that they should be removed from the bill.
Amendments 16 to 18 are very similar to amendments that the committee has already considered and, unfortunately, rejected. Those amendments were extremely reasonable and were based on the DPLR Committee’s recommendations. I suspect that members such as Mr Mason would, in their heart of hearts, agree with those amendments but, given that we have already voted on them—[Interruption.]
I see that Mr Mason is itching to come in. Do you want to intervene?
