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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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
Our next item is consideration of a type 1 consent notification for a proposed UK statutory instrument. On 5 June, the Minister for Climate Action notified the committee of the UK SI. The instrument will involve the UK Government legislating within devolved competence and it seeks the Scottish Government’s consent for it to do so.
The Scottish Government proposes to consent to the instrument, which, as the clerk’s paper explains, would require producers of products to pay the full net cost of managing their packaging at the end of life.
The committee’s role is to decide whether it agrees with the Scottish Government’s proposal to consent to the UK Government making those regulations within devolved competence, and in the manner that has been indicated. If members are content for consent to be given, the committee will write to the Scottish Government accordingly. In so writing, we have the option to draw matters to the Government’s attention, pose questions or ask to be kept up to date on relevant developments.
If the committee is not content with the proposal, it may make one of the two recommendations that are outlined in the clerk’s note. We can recommend that the provisions should not be made at all, or that the Scottish Government take an alternative legislative approach—for example, by bringing forward its own Scottish statutory instruments.
I hope that that is all clear. To help to inform our decision, we have invited the cabinet secretary to stay and give evidence. I am not going to welcome you back again, Gillian, but you are here with us.
We are also joined by a number of Scottish Government officials. David McPhee is doing a third tour of duty in his role as deputy director for the circular economy; Alex Brown is, I think, joining us for the first time as circular economy policy officer; and Carolyn Boyd is on her third tour of duty, too. Thank you for joining us.
I now move to questions from members, with the first question coming, I believe, from Jackie Dunbar.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
Yes, please.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
As there are no other comments, we move to item 6, which is the debate on motion S6M-13501, which calls on the committee to recommend approval of the Companies Act 2006 (Scottish public sector companies to be audited by the Auditor General for Scotland) Order 2024.
I invite the cabinet secretary to move the motion.
Motion moved,
That the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee recommends that the Companies Act 2006 (Scottish public sector companies to be audited by the Auditor General for Scotland) Order 2024 [draft] be approved.—[Gillian Martin]
Motion agreed to.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
Yes—the one that you are asking now.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
We will write to the Scottish Government to that effect.
That concludes our meeting in public. We will now go into private session.
11:59 Meeting continued in private until 12:14.Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
I do not want to get into whether public ownership has benefits. What is slightly concerning to me is that the public performance measures for ScotRail have gone down. We are told that a lot of that is to do with problems south of the border that result in trains coming up late—that is the excuse that we are given, despite the fact that the service has been cut. I want to be sure that reducing the amount of money that private companies contribute to Network Rail is not going to exacerbate the problems and is not going to affect Caledonian Sleeper Ltd, which uses rails south of the border to provide the service. Are you convinced that there is not going to be an increased cost or a diminution of access to the tracks south of the border?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
Welcome back to the meeting.
I apologise for the fact that we are running a wee bit late, as another item was added to the agenda earlier. However, if people can keep their questions short, I might be able to get us back on schedule.
Agenda item 3 is consideration of a draft statutory instrument. I welcome Gillian Martin, the Acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy—thank you for making yourself available for this session, cabinet secretary. I also welcome, from the Scottish Government, David McPhee, deputy director, circular economy; Mark Sweeney, senior policy adviser, product stewardship; and Carolyn Boyd, who is a lawyer. Thank you all for coming.
The instrument is laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that it cannot come into force unless the Parliament approves it. Following the evidence session, the committee will be invited, under the next agenda item, to consider a motion to recommend that the instrument be approved. I remind everyone that Scottish Government officials will be able to speak during this item but not in the debate that follows.
I invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
Please do not take that as a criticism.
Monica Lennon wanted to ask a question.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
It is fair to say that we should include in our report the concerns about moving forward together as the whole United Kingdom and refer to the flexibility that is required to do so.
Thank you, cabinet secretary. Some of your officials are staying, but I will briefly suspend the meeting to allow other people to change places.
11:22 Meeting suspended.11:28 On resuming—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
Cabinet secretary, is there anything that you want to add?
