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 1245 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
P&O Ferries
Meeting date: 29 March 2022
Liam Kerr
Mr Hebblethwaite, I understand that there are a number of land-based employees of P&O, many of whom are based at Cairnryan. Does P&O have any strategic plans, whether finalised or in draft, that would impact on those employees in some way? Obviously if they are to be restructured, transferred under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations, or dismissed, they will be legitimately concerned.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 29 March 2022
Liam Kerr
Thank you. Moving on, I will direct follow-up questions to Grant Tierney and the two Ians at the CITB.
In answer to the last question, Gordon Nelson talked about the need to develop a plan or a co-ordinated strategy. The Scottish Government and Skills Development Scotland published a climate emergency skills action plan in December 2020, which presumably aims to achieve what Gordon has rightly suggested that we need to achieve. That begs the question: what engagement have your organisations had with the action plan? Are any of you on the implementation group, for example? In your view, is the plan on track to ensure that the necessary skills are in place to support our transition to a net zero economy? If not, who needs to act and what needs to happen?
That is for Grant Tierney first.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 29 March 2022
Liam Kerr
Thank you, Grant. That was an interesting answer. As a part of that, do you have any comment on the climate emergency skills action plan from December 2020? How has that impacted your organisation? Most importantly, is the plan on track, as far as you are aware?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 29 March 2022
Liam Kerr
I am very grateful. I pose the same question to Ian Hill.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
P&O Ferries
Meeting date: 29 March 2022
Liam Kerr
Good morning, Mr Hebblethwaite. P&O accepts that UK employment law was not merely broken but fundamentally offended. You are paying out £36 million in settlements to make that acceptable to the employees. I presume that the settlements needed to include—per employee—notice, holidays, a settlement sum, an aggravation uplift and a 90-day collective consultation award. There must also be an up-front cost per month for the agency supply workers. What is the cost of the agencies? How long do your projections show that it will be before P&O breaks even on the settlement sums, agency fees, legal fees and management time, so that the decision makes commercial sense?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
P&O Ferries
Meeting date: 29 March 2022
Liam Kerr
Finally, P&O accepts that UK employment law was broken such that hundreds of employees could potentially have prosecuted unfair dismissal claims. It is difficult to see how such claims could have been successfully defended. I have no doubt that in making your plans you were aware that the primary remedy for a successful unfair dismissal claim is reinstatement. What planning did you do for a situation in which a tribunal ordered the reinstatement of all those employees? Did you plan to comply with such an order or would that authority have been ignored as well? Had that situation come to pass, what loyalty would you have shown to the new agencies?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 29 March 2022
Liam Kerr
I am grateful to the panel. Unless Gordon Nelson or Martyn Raine has anything particular to add, I will hand back to the convener.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
P&O Ferries
Meeting date: 29 March 2022
Liam Kerr
I have no further questions, convener.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
P&O Ferries
Meeting date: 29 March 2022
Liam Kerr
I will just push you on that point, if you do not mind, Mr Hebblethwaite. Just for absolute clarity, you are telling the committee that there are no strategic plans, whether in draft or finalised, to do anything to the land-based staff at Cairnryan—is that correct?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Liam Kerr
That is a fair point.
My next point is also for you, Robbie, although Pam Ewen and Jane Tennant can come in if they wish to add something. It sounds as if demand for planners will be huge and, as you say, it will be vitally important. Are you aware of what impact local authority funding settlements from the Scottish Government have had on the number of places to train and get skills, and on local authorities’ ability to hire more planners? Do you have any sense yet of what this year’s settlement, which I think the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities said was a £100 million cut to local authority budgets, might have on the number of places to study and local authorities’ ability to hire the planners that they need?
