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 1285 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Willie Rennie
We have heard that there are big cuts coming to the college sector over the next few years. However, two weeks ago, Hugh Hall from Fife College told us that colleges are not able, even in those circumstances, to determine their own future, because the Government cannot make up its mind. He set out his case at that meeting.
In June last year, the coherence and stability report was published, and the minister responded in October last year. However, colleges are going to have to wait until summer 2023 until they get a statement of intent from the Government. Why is it taking so long?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Willie Rennie
But does it need two years to do that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Willie Rennie
Okay. Thank you.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Willie Rennie
I have one final question. Are we comfortable that we are asking students from some of the poorest parts of the world to subsidise Scottish education to such an extent? We are asking African countries and south Asian countries—some of the poorest countries facing the greatest struggles—to subsidise Scottish education. Do you feel a bit uncomfortable about doing that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Willie Rennie
It is subsidised.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Willie Rennie
It is still subsidy.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Willie Rennie
I am afraid that the situation does—again—reflect complacency. We have seen a massive reduction in the share of UK research funding that we get for Scottish universities—from roughly 15 per cent to 12.5 per cent. That is a 2.5 per cent drop and means that we have lost £1.8 billion. Of course, we should not be wholly dependent on the public sector, but surely that is an indication that we have not, in recent years, been funding to the same extent as England. Why are you not telling the Government bluntly that the brilliant Scottish universities with brilliant research are in decline?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Willie Rennie
You may have heard the evidence earlier about student homelessness and a shortage of accommodation, staff pay, pensions, short-term contracts, staff ratios and huge stress. Now we hear that we have massive cross-subsidy, which is greater than it is in England, where the funding from international students helps with research. Here, it helps with Scottish students. Is it not a little bit complacent to say that the sector is thriving when we have heard that pretty dark story this morning?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Willie Rennie
Is it free?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Willie Rennie
I was impressed with those answers to Mr Dey’s questions. Our witnesses are quite right to put him in his place. It is up to the Government, not the union representatives, to come up with the answers to these things.
The situation does not seem to be very happy. This morning, you have talked about homelessness, a shortage of student accommodation and very expensive student accommodation. We have talked about severe problems with student finance, staff pay, staff pensions, staff contracts and staff ratios. This is quite a dark place for universities to be in. We have prided ourselves on having some of the best universities not just in Britain but across the world. Do you think that that status is under threat if these issues are not resolved?
