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 1066 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
David Torrance
The petition is very important, but can I ask that the clerks check the work programme of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee? If it is going to hold an inquiry on the issue, I would like to pass the petition on to it. The petitioner could also give evidence to that inquiry.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
David Torrance
Good morning, Callum. In the 11 years that I have been on this committee, I cannot recall a petitioner twice your age, never mind one as young as you. Well done, and welcome to the committee.
Before I ask questions about the petition, what is your favourite sport?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
David Torrance
I will not say which Scottish team I support, because it is in the headlines quite a lot just now, but I am a Leeds United fan.
When did you first notice in school that there were lots of children using plastic bottles?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
David Torrance
So nearly everybody in your class was using plastic bottles.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Tackling Alcohol Harms
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
David Torrance
I think that my questions, which were on minimum unit pricing being index linked, have been answered.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
David Torrance
The next new petition is PE1919, lodged by Ted Gourley, on prohibiting the advertising and promotion of high-caffeine products to children for performance enhancement.
The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ban the sale of fast-release caffeine gum to under-18s for performance enhancement. The petitioner believes that the continued sale of such products puts children and young people at risk of serious harm. He cites examples of where such gum has been distributed widely at races, with the caffeine content exceeding the daily recommended dose for a young person. The petitioner points out that both scottishathletics and sportscotland have previously warned of health risks from consuming high doses of caffeine, particularly for those under 18 who have undiagnosed medical issues.
In its submission, the Scottish Government advised that, from December 2018 to February 2019, a consultation had been held on ending the sale of energy drinks to children and young people, which had provided
“an opportunity for respondents to raise concerns in relation to other food and drink products, such as caffeine gum”,
as
“Chewing gum falls under the definition of food in food law.”
The Scottish Government stated that it is
“currently considering responses to the consultation”,
that it has undertaken to publish a report, and that it will update the committee in due course.
It went on to note:
“In May 2015, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published its Scientific Opinion on the safety of caffeine. It advised that single doses of caffeine up to 200mg from all sources do not raise safety concerns for the ... healthy adult population. For children and adolescents, EFSA’s opinion explains that there is insufficient information available to set a safe caffeine intake. However, EFSA considered that due to children and adolescents processing caffeine at least at the same rate as adults, the single doses of no concern for adults may also be applied to children as a daily limit.”
Do members have any comments?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
David Torrance
Welcome to the third meeting in 2022 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee. There are apologies from our convener, Jackson Carlaw, and I will convene today’s meeting in his place.
Agenda item 1 is consideration of continued petitions. PE1855, which was lodged by Claire Mitchell QC, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to pardon, apologise to and create a national monument to memorialise the people in Scotland who were accused and convicted of being witches under the Witchcraft Act 1563.
When we last considered the petition, in January, we decided to invite the petitioners here in order to hear from them directly. I am therefore pleased to welcome Claire Mitchell QC, who joins us in the Scottish Parliament, and Zoe Venditozzi, who joins us remotely. Claire, do you have any initial comments?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
David Torrance
Thank you. My colleagues will now ask questions.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
David Torrance
Our final petition is PE1921, from Maddy Dhesi, on behalf of Hands Off Our Vote, calling on the Scottish Government to confirm that it will not introduce voter identification in devolved Holyrood or local elections in Scotland and that it will communicate that to voters.
In its submission, the Scottish Government confirms that it has no plans to introduce voter ID in devolved elections. It notes that that contrasts with the UK Government’s Elections Bill, which is at its second reading in the House of Lords.?The submission explains that the UK bill would require voters to show an approved form of photographic identification before collecting their ballot paper to vote at UK Parliament general elections in Great Britain, local elections in England and police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales.
The Scottish Government?is also aware of concerns regarding confusion in the event of a UK poll occurring on the same day as a Scottish poll with different identification requirements for each contest. It also notes the additional responsibility that that would place on presiding officers at each polling station to police the ID requirement.
Do members have any comments?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
David Torrance
I believe that Ruth Maguire has some more questions.
10:30