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 529 contributions
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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 10 January 2023
Oliver Mundell
I have heard the point that the minister has made regarding an open-door policy. During my time in Parliament I have always found the minister easy to work with on issues. However, with the best will in the world, part of the problem here is that you cannot guarantee that you will be the minister making the decisions. We face that issue time and again when we are considering other powers and legislation. The promises that you make as a minister today are only as good as the time that you spend in this particular office. My worry is that we are handing over to ministers quite wide-ranging powers on a very significant piece of legislation. Ordinarily, we would expect this kind of bill to have much more detail. Do you not think that that is a problem?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 10 January 2023
Oliver Mundell
I hear what you are saying, and I have trust and faith in people, but the question that I ask myself is whether I have trust and faith in Government ministers to listen. You are asking us to put a huge amount of trust and faith in Government ministers—rather than the Parliament itself—to do that listening. A number of organisations, including the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Faculty of Advocates, question whether that approach is appropriate. The Care Inspectorate has questioned whether there is enough information to know how it will work in practice. That is not getting off to a good start in building confidence, is it?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 10 January 2023
Oliver Mundell
Why does it surprise you that organisations would be concerned, not about the substance of the bill but about the process? Why does it surprise you that organisations would be concerned about the appropriateness of the bill that you are presenting to Parliament?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 10 January 2023
Oliver Mundell
Why do the Faculty of Advocates and the Equality and Human Rights Commission have concerns about a framework bill?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 10 January 2023
Oliver Mundell
I accept that. However, it is a concern that organisations that most people would accept as having no direct vested interest in the bill, which are experienced in how legislation works and have interacted regularly with the Parliament’s legislative process over the past two decades, are questioning the appropriateness of the Government’s chosen method in a major piece of legislation. This committee has a role to play in reporting on secondary legislation and it is worrying that major organisations are questioning not the substance of the bill but the Government’s approach. There is a big risk attached to asking the Parliament to go forward with what you described as a novel approach, which seems to be based entirely on trusting ministers to listen—something that I do not think is the experience of people across the country.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 10 January 2023
Oliver Mundell
I have a specific point for the minister. Is it possible for Parliament to amend Government regulations?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 10 January 2023
Oliver Mundell
You have deliberately limited the scope of the bill by using this method. Members will have limited opportunities to amend the legislation when it comes to the detail, because you have put it all to one side for later. That is not proper parliamentary process and it does not allow the Parliament to do its job of holding you to account properly, which creates a real risk and danger for people who will rely on the legislation.
I do not think that we can say that the Parliament or the Government has a very good record when it comes to delivering for many of the people who will be impacted by the legislation. It seems wrong that you are asking us to put so much confidence and trust in a process that means that there will be no scrutiny. Even if people disagree with what you are doing, you will be able to go ahead anyway. The Parliament will not be allowed to do its job. I do not see how you, as a member of the Parliament and a minister in the Government, can think that that will lead to effective co-design or robust legislation. It is just wrong.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill
Meeting date: 13 December 2022
Oliver Mundell
Thank you for that. The power to restate can be used to consolidate REUL or assimilated law into a single instrument. What are the implications of that? What are your views on that? That question is open to all three witnesses.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill
Meeting date: 13 December 2022
Oliver Mundell
We have touched on this point already in relation to the appropriateness of the negative procedure, to which I will come back in a second. When it comes to restating REUL or assimilating law, the power to use different “words or concepts” does not go as far as making
“substantive change to the policy effect of legislation.”
Morag Ross mentioned substantive change in one of her answers. What is the threshold for substantive change? Where does that sit?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill
Meeting date: 13 December 2022
Oliver Mundell
That is okay. As no one else has a view on that, I will move on.
My final question is on regulations that reinstate REUL or assimilated law and that are subject to the negative procedure except when they amend primary legislation, in which case the draft affirmative procedure is to be used. What is your view on the appropriateness of that procedure? Obviously, that is slightly different to other parts of the bill.
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