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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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Daniel Johnson
This has been an interesting discussion. I will go back to the subject of my previous supplementary question. There are issues with scrutiny and the ability for other people to give input. Those are baked into our parliamentary processes, but it is incredibly rare for evidence to be taken regarding secondary legislation, under either the negative or affirmative procedure, and it is rare to have any sort of a formal parliamentary scrutiny beyond placing a matter on this committee’s agenda and, perhaps, on the agenda of a lead committee. There is some parliamentary oversight of the substance of SSIs, but it is not just a little bit less than there is for primary legislation: it is almost completely absent.
Do we need to re-examine what happens? Do we need a parliamentary change or should the Government think about how it frames secondary powers within legislation? I put that question to Lloyd Austin first, because he was circling round those points in some of his previous answers.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Daniel Johnson
I will start by following on from the answers to Bill Kidd’s questions, which also relate to some other points.
On post-legislative scrutiny, part of it might be about amending, updating and fixing. Michael Clancy pointed out earlier that there are other expedited legislative processes. Are alternative ways of viewing legislation part of what needs to be looked at? Should we have more legislation that addresses updates and fixes to the law, or shorter pieces of legislation that are more focused?
I was looking at the standing orders. Through the normal processes, in theory, without using emergency legislation, legislation could be got through in seven or eight weeks, given what is stipulated for the time between stages. Rather than always thinking that legislation needs to be big and long and drawn out, should we be using it to update and improve law as we go, as opposed to using secondary legislation to achieve the same effect?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Daniel Johnson
Finally, I will bring in Jonnie Hall. The thrust of my previous supplementary question was that, sometimes, powers are set out in legislation that are so broadly stated that they could almost be used for entirely opposite objectives to those that were intended. I understand the point about flexibility, but is there a need to have more scrutiny and input on such things when instruments are going through Parliament? If so, do you have any thoughts on what that could look like and what would be useful—without impeding the flexibilities, which are clearly important—if there are pressing issues?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Daniel Johnson
That was helpful. Ms Springham, do you want to comment?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Daniel Johnson
It was more broadly about whether there is more than one way to skin a cat. We are using secondary legislation to update things, but are there other ways of doing that?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Daniel Johnson
I am smiling, because that is what the Government likes to say. However, when you look you will see that most weeks we are not legislating. In fact, if we were to have a stage 3 once a month, we would say that that was quite frequent. I think that the Parliament has scope to do more legislating, if it wanted to. In theory, it is an interesting point, but the situation is not the same in the Scottish Parliament as it is at Westminster.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Daniel Johnson
It must be bad, then.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Daniel Johnson
Ms Crichton, did you want to comment?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Daniel Johnson
My substantive line of questioning, which was on practical suggestions that you might have, has, I think, largely been dealt with by others, certainly with regard to amending and other such matters. However, I was interested in the Law Society’s evidence, which makes a number of recommendations on framework legislation, including on provision of enhanced supplementary material, enhanced consultation and the possibility of legislation being amended.
In that respect, I have two questions. First, are you suggesting, essentially, that we should have a different process for framework bills in order to cover those things? I also noticed that the submission suggested—as you have, Michael—that draft regulations could be put alongside such bills to give greater clarity.
Is that about having a different process for framework legislation? If so, should that process also apply to secondary powers, such as those that might not be in full-blown framework legislation, but which have some of those characteristics? Is the implication that there should be some sort of sifting mechanism to decide when such a process should be employed?
12:15Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Daniel Johnson
You are such an optimist—it is heartening. [Laughter.]
Ms Springham and Ms Crichton, do you have thoughts about enhanced material or other things that should be requested along with a framework bill?
