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 1417 contributions
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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4 (Annual Review)
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Miles Briggs
Obviously, your portfolio sits between local government and planning. Yesterday, I was at a Perth and Kinross Council meeting to discuss some of its housing issues, specifically around empty homes. In Edinburgh, my council has more than 3,000 empty properties. Where are you trying to connect those two issues to provide the homes that we need?
Gordon MacDonald and I have raised that issue consistently with the council, which always says that it does not have the money to bring the properties back into use. In some cases, the council has not audited the properties to find out what works need to take place.
Given the housing emergency that the Government has declared, getting every home possible back into use seems like an important starting point.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4 (Annual Review)
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Miles Briggs
Good morning, panel, and thanks for joining us here and online today. I want to ask a question about concerns that the committee has heard about the wording of some NPF4 policies, which people have stated are unclear. Do you have any examples of where you would like to see that improved? If not, we can move on to another question.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4 (Annual Review)
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Miles Briggs
I hope that NPF4 has not driven Ian Aikman to an early retirement, but we will leave that to one side.
David Givan touched on how NPF4 can move towards delivery of an infrastructure-first approach. Gordon MacDonald and I represent Edinburgh and the Lothians, and we have seen huge amounts of development take place with new-build homes, but not necessarily with corresponding infrastructure. Are there examples of how NPF4 might help to move towards that and whether you have seen that change?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4 (Annual Review)
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Miles Briggs
Good morning to the panel. I want to ask about NPF4 policies that encourage developers to build on brownfield sites and what else can be done to help support that. Specifically, we have heard concerns around decontamination costs. What impact has NPF4 made and is there is anything that you want to put on the record on that?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4 (Annual Review)
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Miles Briggs
If no one wants to add to that, I will move on to the delivery of the infrastructure-first approach that is part of NPF4, and specifically whether or not there have been any changes around that. Here in Edinburgh, the west Edinburgh green network has specifically looked to embed walking and cycling connections for the developments that will grow to the west of the city.
Also—I will maybe bring Morag in—there is the grid upgrade and renewables projects that are coming forward. Housing may be one of the biggest workforce problems. What work is going on that is not necessarily outlined in NPF4, but the industry is taking forward?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4 (Annual Review)
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Miles Briggs
We are short on time, so I will ask my last question, which is potentially more for the island and rural councils. There is conflicting evidence on the balance to be struck between NPF4 protecting areas with carbon-rich soils and the development of renewable energy infrastructure. What are your views on whether or not those things are in competition? We heard in evidence that the climate and nature emergencies sometimes rub up against planning in NPF4. Do you have any views on that?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4 (Annual Review)
Meeting date: 7 May 2024
Miles Briggs
That is helpful.
When the committee was doing work on NPF4 and I spoke to members of the public and my constituents, one thing that came up was the infrastructure first approach. For a lot of people, there is often frustration when development takes place—such as a new primary school, a general practitioner surgery investment or even just play parks—and parts of designs are not delivered. We had some good examples, such as Bertha Park secondary school in Perthshire, where the school was built early and to plan. Has that infrastructure first approach started to be embedded in planning over—this is quite a short period—the past year? It is certainly something that members of the public want to see NPF4 deliver.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4 (Annual Review)
Meeting date: 7 May 2024
Miles Briggs
Thank you for that.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4 (Annual Review)
Meeting date: 7 May 2024
Miles Briggs
Thanks and good morning. I asked a question of the previous panel about some of the concerns that have been raised with the committee about the wording of some of the policies in NPF4 being unclear and leading to inconsistent decision-making. We have heard evidence about evidence reports and how different councils are looking at the guidance not being in place. What is your experience of that and what solutions do you think could be put in place to have a more consistent approach?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4 (Annual Review)
Meeting date: 7 May 2024
Miles Briggs
Thank you; that is helpful, and leads on quite well to my next question on the infrastructure first approach. I wanted to ask whether there has been a different approach. We touched on some of the potential section 75 reforms, but, as a Lothian MSP, I think that the regional growth that we have seen in house building has not necessarily been matched by the necessary infrastructure. There are predictions that around 80 per cent of all future growth will be here in Edinburgh and the south-east of Scotland, so we need to make sure that we take that infrastructure first approach.
How do you think NPF4 is helping to facilitate that and, if it is not, how could it be tweaked to ensure that the services that we will all rely on will be there, especially in the significant developments in the peripheral areas of the capital, for example? Tony Cain, do you want to answer that, and then anyone else can come in?
