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 1601 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
International Learning Exchange Programmes
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Ben Macpherson
That is great to hear, and that is what we would hope and expect. Thank you. I will hand back to Meghan Gallacher for questions to our witnesses in Wales.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
International Learning Exchange Programmes
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Ben Macpherson
We would be interested to receive the information on those follow-up points. Ruth Maguire has a follow-up question.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
International Learning Exchange Programmes
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Ben Macpherson
If there is anything further that you would like to clarify and that would be useful for the committee, please provide it in your follow up. Willie Rennie has questions for our witnesses from Taith.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
International Learning Exchange Programmes
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Ben Macpherson
Can we move on to questions for our colleagues, Mr Kerr?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
International Learning Exchange Programmes
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Ben Macpherson
One.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
International Learning Exchange Programmes
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Ben Macpherson
I am pleased to call Bill Kidd, who has some questions for YouthLink Scotland.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
International Learning Exchange Programmes
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Ben Macpherson
Good morning and a warm welcome to the 16th meeting in 2023 of the Education, Children and Young People Committee. We have apologies from Bob Doris, Ross Greer and our convener, Sue Webber. I welcome Meghan Gallacher and Ivan McKee as substitute members. Stephanie Callaghan joins us remotely.
A reminder for those who are joining us remotely: if you would like to come in at any point, please type R in the chat function, and the clerks will alert me.
Our first agenda item is an evidence session on international learning exchange programmes. I warmly welcome Susana Galván, executive director, and Elid Morris, head of operations, Taith, who join us remotely; and Liz Green, workforce and practice manager, YouthLink Scotland, who joins us in person.
Members have a number of questions, which they will direct either to Liz Green, in the room, or to our witnesses from Taith, down the line. Our first questions are to YouthLink Scotland and come from Stephanie Callaghan.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 18 May 2023
Ben Macpherson
I know Heart of Newhaven well, being the constituency MSP. That community asset transfer was very successful, and I pay tribute to all the people who were involved in making it happen. Several of them had significant time, as they had stopped working, and were very knowledgeable about how to make the system work for the benefit of the community, which created a good outcome.
Do you have any further reflections on how critical it is that we have individuals with enthusiasm, knowledge and determination, as well as foresight? Indeed, that project came about because there was an early awareness in the community that an asset was coming on stream as the primary school moved into another part of Newhaven.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 18 May 2023
Ben Macpherson
As a wider point in those considerations, community asset transfers are sometimes led by specific groups of individuals, such as in the case of Heart of Newhaven. However, individuals in community councils are often important, too. Through their general considerations as community councillors, they can be involved in community groups and the community council. With the on-going wider considerations around the local governance review, how important do you see community councils as being?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Asylum Seekers in Scotland
Meeting date: 16 May 2023
Ben Macpherson
Thank you.
I want to ask about the evidence that has been given thus far. I note the point from my colleague Mr O’Kane about immigration law being a reserved matter, but all the evidence that I have seen over several years is that migrants make a net contribution and that there is not just a wider social benefit but an economic one. Most of the areas in which asylum seekers are placed in Scotland are experiencing labour shortages.
I appreciate that Caroline O’Connor might be able to say more about this than John Taylor but, where you can comment, I would be interested to hear your reflections on how much benefit it would bring if we took a sensible approach that allowed asylum seekers to work and to participate in the economy. They could then begin to make their net contribution at an earlier stage. They could access resource, build their skills and help themselves to get housing, and they could contribute to society as much as those who successfully make their way through the asylum system.
