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 1920 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Monica Lennon
I put my question to Jon Hollingdale.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Monica Lennon
It is helpful to get that on the record.
I want to focus on biodiversity, for a moment. Does the panel have a view on whether sustaining biodiversity is a sufficient requirement, or should the bill require the land management plan to set out how the land is being used to increase biodiversity? Linda Gillespie is definitely looking away, so I am looking again at Josh Doble.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Monica Lennon
I will press you a little further on that. Do you have a view on how specific the land management plan should be? I know that we do not want to give a long list of particular problems, but I am thinking about management in respect of deer or rhododendron, for example, which were mentioned in a debate in Parliament last week. Is that the kind of detail that you think would be required for the plans to be effective?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Monica Lennon
Thank you for that.
You made a point about language that could be in the bill. I take your point about the phrase “large land holdings”. Do you want to expand on what you mean when you talk about “significant landholdings”? In the committee, we think about the meaning of words and their definitions.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Monica Lennon
I see that Linda Gillespie does not wish to comment. That is fine.
I will move on to land management plans. The plans are required to set out how the land is being managed in a way that contributes to achieving net zero, adapting to climate change and increasing or sustaining biodiversity. Is that adequate, or are there other criteria that it might be appropriate to include? Should those be addressed through primary or secondary legislation?
Josh Doble is again maintaining eye contact, so we will go to him.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Monica Lennon
Scottish Labour will also support amendments 6, 11 and 12. The amendments align with our aims to increase parliamentary oversight, to improve transparency and, as Mark Ruskell mentioned, to get the extra detail that we felt was perhaps going to be lacking otherwise. We will therefore support the amendments.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Monica Lennon
At stage 2, we were a little unsure about the wording of Patrick Harvie’s proposal, so we appreciate the further work that has been done since last week. For that reason, we are content to support amendment 13.
Douglas Lumsden asked a fair question about the definition of a major capital project. It is a question that we had, too, but I think that the wording of the amendment is reasonable. There will be proposals in the plan. The principle behind the amendment is welcome and we can support it.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Monica Lennon
Nevertheless, we are still not fully persuaded by the proposed amendments.
When we discussed the issue with the Government last week, there was a willingness on its part to go away and look at what Patrick Harvie is trying to achieve to see whether something can be done. I will listen to what the cabinet secretary has to say in a moment.
As Patrick Harvie probably knows, we are not yet fully persuaded. However, I would be interested to know whether there are other measures outwith the bill that the Government could look at that would help to achieve those aims. Patrick Harvie makes an important point about the important connection between the fiscal budget and the carbon budget. As he knows, Scottish Labour members would agree with anything that will improve scrutiny and alignment, but in this case, I am not convinced. Given the fact that he has lodged two different amendments on the same issue, I am not sure that he is fully convinced either, but I look forward to hearing what he has to say.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Monica Lennon
I thank the cabinet secretary for her comments about my colleague Sarah Boyack. We had good discussions last week, and Sarah Boyack appreciated the cabinet secretary’s willingness to fix some of the oversights at stage 2. It is good to have that sorted.
On Mark Ruskell’s amendment 8, which we support—in fact, we support all the amendments in the group—we had a good discussion on the intention behind his amendment at stage 2, only a week ago. We understood and supported the principle, and amendment 8 gets the right balance.
This is an opportunity to remind the chamber that the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee has heard strongly from the climate change people’s panel that the public want to be involved and consulted in a very dynamic way. A raft of recommendations are sitting with the Government. However, those are not just for the Government to reflect on; they are for other public bodies to reflect on, too.
Amendment 8 is important. Indeed, anything that reminds us that we need to take the public with us on that journey and get the best ideas from as many people in Scotland as possible can only be a good thing.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Monica Lennon
I am grateful to Patrick Harvie—I think that he will recognise that Scottish Labour members tried to be open minded at stage 2, and asked him some questions in order to get some clarity. However, although we are sympathetic to his aims in lodging amendments 14 and 15, which I think are alternatives to each other—is that correct?
