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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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Do colleagues have any other suggestions? We could write to organisations including COSLA, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, the General Teaching Council for Scotland, the Scottish Catholic Education Service and the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child to seek their views on the issues raised within the petition. Do members agree with those suggestions?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Welcome to the third meeting of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee in 2023. I have apologies from Jackson Carlaw, so, as deputy convener, I am convening today.
The first item on our agenda this morning is a decision on whether to take item 4 in private.? Do we agree to do so?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Our first continued petition today is PE1948, lodged by Alex O’Kane, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to encourage Police Scotland to review its practices for dealing with unexplained deaths, from initial recovery through to the support that is offered to family members.
We are joined this morning by Stephanie Bonner, who is here to tell us about what change she believes is needed, following her own personal experience. Thank you for your courage in coming to give evidence this morning, Stephanie. We appreciate you taking the time to speak with us.
I also welcome members of the public who are here to support the petition and Stephanie.
Stephanie, I believe you have a brief opening statement. Would you like to read it out? Just take your time.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Welcome back, everybody. We will now consider PE1862, lodged by Rona MacKay, Angus Campbell and Naomi Bremner on behalf of the Uist economic task force, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to?urge the Scottish Government to introduce community representation on boards of public organisations delivering lifeline services to island communities, in keeping with the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018.
10:45At our previous consideration of the petition on 9 November 2022, we agreed to write to the Minister for Transport to seek information on the process for appointments to the board of David MacBrayne Ltd, and to seek an update on communication between the minister and Highland and Islands Airports Ltd—HIAL—about the proposal in the petition.
I am pleased to say that we have now received a response from the minister that sets out details of the advertising campaign to recruit two non-executive directors to the board of David MacBrayne Ltd. The minister highlights that an understanding of island life is a key criterion for those roles and that that will be fully explored and assessed throughout the recruitment process.
On HIAL, the minister notes that an understanding of the communities in which HIAL airports are located is an essential requirement for all board members. It also noted that HIAL has recently recruited a new finance director, who has also been appointed to its board. That person is an island resident.
The committee has also received a submission from our colleague Alasdair Allan MSP. He has reiterated his support for the petition and notes that, although progress is being made, individual appointments to the boards of HIAL and Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd do not necessarily mean the issues have been resolved.
Do members have any comments or suggestions?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Stephanie, thank you very much for coming and giving us evidence. I know it is a really difficult time for you and it is difficult to go back through it.
Thank you also to the people in the public gallery for coming to support Stephanie Bonner and the petition—it is greatly appreciated. I suspend the meeting to allow Stephanie to leave.
10:18 Meeting suspended.10:22 On resuming—
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Could the statutory guidance on nutritional requirements for food and drink in schools be revised to address the concerns that Callum Isted raised in the petition?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
I now suspend the meeting for a short while.
10:42 Meeting suspended.10:44 On resuming—
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Thank you. Does everybody agree to take that approach?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
We could write to the stakeholders involved, such as the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, Sexual Health Scotland, the British Medical Association, the Scottish Human Rights Commission, Abortion Rights Scotland and faith organisations—Interfaith Scotland, the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child and the Humanist Society Scotland—to seek their views on the actions that are called for in the petition.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
PE1985 is on evaluating garage to home developments and has been lodged by Darren Loftus. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to commission an independent evaluation and provide national guidance on garages to homes developments.
The Scottish Government’s response to the petition notes that the proposed garages to homes project meets the Scottish Borders Council’s local housing strategy objectives and is supported by both the Scottish Borders Council and South of Scotland Enterprise. It states that the buildings will be permanent, high-quality homes, designed for wheelchair users and/or people with limited mobility.
On the issue of community engagement, it highlights a public consultation that was held in November 2022 and plans for consultation events in the future. The submission concludes by stating that the
“Scottish Government does not prescribe, nor enforce, particular housing solutions, but rather it provides the planning framework against which developments are tested.”
The petitioner’s recent submission asks:
“Is the aspiration of the Scottish Parliament to move their citizens, specifically older adults and people with a disability, into housing units converted from garages?”
His submission questions the quality of the feasibility study for the project, stating that no social factors or identifiable local housing needs were factored into the study.
Do members have any comments or suggestions???
