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.
Criathragan Hide all filters
Displaying 2146 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
Primary Care
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Monica Lennon
It is on a different point.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Monica Lennon
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions finance ministers have had with the Minister for Higher Education and Further Education, Youth Employment and Training to assess the number of construction apprentices and construction workers needed to support the recovery of Scotland’s economy and meet its net zero targets. (S6O-01582)
Meeting of the Parliament
Primary Care
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Monica Lennon
I tried to intervene on the cabinet secretary, but perhaps he did not hear me. In NHS Lanarkshire the situation is especially bad. Since October last year, it has spent 315 days at code black, and we are facing a second Christmas at that status. Graham Simpson knows that that is frightening stuff for patients and staff in our area. Does he agree that we need an urgent plan from ministers to get NHS Lanarkshire out of code black? The cabinet secretary is right to say that we should thank the staff—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Water (Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22)
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Monica Lennon
We heard in the opening statement that there is little sign of inflation or the cost crisis slowing down. I will ask my questions in that context.
My first question is for Douglas Millican. Is it fair to hike up household bills by 4.2 per cent during a cost of living crisis?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Water (Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22)
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Monica Lennon
Given that my initial questions were about fairness and the assessment of fairness, it was important to take the temperature on that issue.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Water (Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22)
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Monica Lennon
I am keen to come to Alan Sutherland in a moment but, Johanna Dow, what increase will non-domestic customers see in their bills?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Water (Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22)
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Monica Lennon
Do you have an assessment of it?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Water (Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22)
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Monica Lennon
There is a lot in that answer. My question was whether it is fair to put prices up by 4.2 per cent. You did not answer that, but you did suggest that things will not get better in the immediate future, which sounds quite gloomy. Does that mean that households should brace themselves for further increases? The 4.2 per cent increase is pegged to CPI, but we know that inflation is now at about 11 per cent or even higher. What will increases look like in future years? You talked about customers’ high expectations. Will we see higher prices?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Water (Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22)
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Monica Lennon
Do you have a view on the fairness of the charging scheme?
10:30Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Water (Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22)
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Monica Lennon
I turn to Alan Sutherland for the view of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland. I asked Douglas Millican about the fairness of the charges. What is your view?
