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 1377 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change Committee’s Review of Scottish Emissions Targets and Progress Report 2023
Meeting date: 23 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
On that sense of collective challenge and purpose in the political discourse, Chris Stark made some powerful points on the BBC at the weekend. As this is your last time at the committee in your current role, I give you the chance to say anything further on the collective challenge in our discourse and how we need to work collaboratively—not just to all of us around the table but to every politician in this building, every researcher and press officer behind the scenes, every journalist, and every campaigner and researcher for the many stakeholders who are involved in those considerations. How do we get our collective discourse and position to a better place?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change Committee’s Review of Scottish Emissions Targets and Progress Report 2023
Meeting date: 23 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
Recently, I visited a very interesting project that Lar Housing Trust has undertaken, in which it has converted an existing tenement building and a new tenement building with a district heating system through two British companies—one of which is Scottish. Kensa is a UK level company and Sunamp is from here in Scotland. There is evidence of what can be done.
As a constituency MSP who represents a lot of people who live in tenement housing and as someone who lives in one myself, reform of the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 is important, as is the current consultation. Those issues need to be seen in tandem if we want to convert existing housing stock.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change Committee’s Review of Scottish Emissions Targets and Progress Report 2023
Meeting date: 23 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
We will need to reform the 2004 act to enable or to compel shared owners to come together, and to potentially have building bonds that achieve financial—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change Committee’s Review of Scottish Emissions Targets and Progress Report 2023
Meeting date: 23 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
Professor Bell, you talked earlier about agriculture and land use. Do you want to say anything more on that? Your assessment suggests that the contribution of several key actions in agriculture, forestry and peatlands is off track. What would Scotland need—and what would you need—from the next climate change plan to provide certainty that there will be delivery in those areas?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change Committee’s Review of Scottish Emissions Targets and Progress Report 2023
Meeting date: 23 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
Thank you.
I will first go back to the topic of having a five-yearly carbon budget approach, rather than annual targets. I appreciate that you have clarified that you will make proposals, having considered the Welsh situation. Do you want to add anything more at this stage about the challenges, practicalities and process for setting five-yearly carbon budgets and how you envisage that working through the Government and Parliament?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Climate Change Committee’s Review of Scottish Emissions Targets and Progress Report 2023
Meeting date: 23 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
Considering the politics, the fact that the Scottish Parliament has five-yearly parliamentary terms might be quite helpful in that regard.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland (Strategic Plan 2024-28)
Meeting date: 17 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
Going back to schooling and the considerations around reform, I noted the part of the video that was about life skills and financial awareness. Will you seek to push those issues in the context of education reform and curriculum changes?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland (Strategic Plan 2024-28)
Meeting date: 17 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
I presume that, in addition to higher and further education, you will take into account considerations to do with employers and the apprenticeship programmes.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland (Strategic Plan 2024-28)
Meeting date: 17 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
The Government already has a lot to consider from the various reviews that have taken place in recent months and years. Do you feel that the doors are open, so to speak, for you to feed in your thoughts, as you have just mentioned?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland (Strategic Plan 2024-28)
Meeting date: 17 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
The issue is that young people are contracted in law and they do not have the agency to move between clubs in a way that would be right and reasonable. That is what your concerns derive from, is it not?
