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 1977 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
Oh—in the coming weeks.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
Okay. You can tell that we are very excited.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
You protect £100,000. When Dr Dixon said earlier that communities might face a bill of around £30,000 to £40,000 for bringing a judicial review, that seemed to me to be the lower end of the scale. In my region, communities have been advised previously that the cost would range from £50,000 to £100,000, so maybe you have access to good-value lawyers. How many cases could that money fund? Would it be two or three cases at the most?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
Maybe the word “cap” is not the right word to use. In reality, there could be one case a year, so if a few cases were in front of you, you would have to choose which was the most serious.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Environmental Governance
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
A lot has been said already, particularly in Dr Dixon’s helpful opening remarks, but I will stick with the issue of Aarhus compliance. ESS has said:
“In principle, a court, tribunal or other judicial measures ... would help support better access to environmental justice for Scotland”.
Can you give examples of what “other judicial measures” could mean?
Planning has been mentioned a couple of times. In a previous session of Parliament, Graham Simpson and I were on the Local Government and Communities Committee, which looked at the Planning (Scotland) Bill and the opportunities that existed to make the process more democratic, for example by having rights of appeal. You said that a merits-based review is important when it comes to Aarhus compliance, but developers have that right now through the planning appeals process, while communities and—to use that horrible phrase—third parties do not.
What is meant by “other judicial measures”? Could we look at tweaking the planning system to get more equality around appeals to help with access to environmental justice?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
What happens in the scenario where the cap is reached? What would be the impact on bus operators and users? You have talked about the modelling of this. What are the risk factors? How likely is the scenario that the cap could be reached within the financial year?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
I am a little concerned. We discussed earlier how we want to get more people on to buses and sustainable transport. We want to ensure that that is sustainable. We could reach the cap if we continue to be successful in getting people on to buses, and we are asking operators to provide concessionary travel at a much reduced rate to them. They could come back and tell the minister or Transport Scotland that they can no longer run a service because it is not commercially viable. Is that part of your modelling? Do you have any reassuring answers, not only for people in my area of Central Scotland, but for all of us?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
That is wonderful. Thank you.
Meeting of the Parliament
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 February 2024
Monica Lennon
I am glad that the minister is giving so much attention to Anne’s law. I know that Anne’s family are listening. Her husband, Campbell Duke, is listening, and her daughter, Natasha, will be listening. It is what they have to say that we all need to listen to.
I appeal to the minister to make time in her diary and that of the Government, between now and stage 2—if that is where we are heading—to listen to families such as Anne’s and so many others, who are not visitors but essential caregivers, and to take nothing off the table. We all agree that Anne’s law should be a reality. It is long overdue, and if there is a quicker and more effective route to that, let us not rule it out.
Meeting of the Parliament
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 February 2024
Monica Lennon
I am glad that Clare Haughey mentioned Anne’s law, and I welcome the report’s recommendations. I note that the committee agreed that Anne’s law should be fully implemented as soon as possible to ensure a human rights-based approach to care. Did it consider different options for its implementation, other than in the bill that was before the committee? Across the chamber, there is frustration in that, although we all agree on the need for Anne’s law, it perhaps does not need to be part of this bill. It could be implemented in other ways.
