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 1589 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Ross Greer
One reason why we are hosting this session is the correspondence that committee members received from university staff—UCU members—back in the spring about their working conditions. Given that national bargaining takes place UK wide, how can we improve conditions for university staff in Scotland through Scottish Government initiatives or directly at an institutional level?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Ross Greer
Is there time for a response on reserves from Ellie Gomersall?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Ross Greer
I have one final question for Professor Boyne. You will have heard in the previous evidence session discussion around my questions to the panel about working conditions in universities, so it is only fair that you have the opportunity to lay out Universities Scotland’s position on that issue. Why is there a relatively high prevalence of casualisation, zero-hours contracts, short-term contracts and so on in the sector?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Ross Greer
I am interested in following up on what Stephen Smellie said. I found Unison’s submission really helpful, in that the committee has a whole range of organisations that come to us wanting more spending in the areas that they prioritise, but very few folk are willing to come with proposals on how to raise additional money to pay for that or what to cut from elsewhere to do that.
That said, as much as I think that Unison’s revenue-raising proposals are deliverable and could produce tangible results, even if they were collectively maximised, they would not raise enough money to match the spending commitments that Unison is looking for. Therefore, I am interested in the union’s view on prioritisation. Is the priority free school meals? Is it increasing NHS funding? Is it keeping public sector pay in line with inflation? How should Parliament prioritise spending in a context in which, at least in the short term—over the next two to three years—we certainly cannot do everything on your spending list all at once.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Ross Greer
Yes. The national care service is a good example. I would maybe not share Unison’s view on that, but it is a tangible example. However, there is a lot of other stuff in the submission that ticks the boxes that Stephen Smellie outlined as priorities, such as free school meals. I presume that Unison has a main focus on increasing funding for further and higher education not just in the interest of equity for students, but because there are substantial numbers of low-paid workers in those sectors.
How can we prioritise between different areas of spending that would all raise the wages of low-paid workers, lift children out of poverty and so on? We cannot do all the things at once. That is the issue that we have. Should free school meals, public sector pay, more funding for colleges or more funding for universities be prioritised? I realise that, in principle, in a utopian world, it should not be a matter of choosing between those things, but it will certainly be a matter of choices in the next few years. We will have to make the choices, but I am keen to know what the trade union movement’s priorities would be.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Ross Greer
At its core, it is the same question about prioritisation. Some of the tax proposals in Unison’s submission would require primary legislation, as they involve new tax powers. Given that the legislative timetable for the next couple of years is pretty tight, which of the brand-new proposals—the local inheritance tax or the replacement of council tax—would you prioritise for parliamentary and Government time?
09:45Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Ross Greer
Thank you. I would be happy to come back in later, convener.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Ross Greer
Yes, we can put that away until later—that is fine.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Ross Greer
Thanks.
I have one very brief follow-up question for David Lonsdale. David, you made an interesting remark about your opposition to income tax rises for those of modest income. Can I push you a little bit and ask you to define “modest income”? Are we talking about the cleaners on 18 grand whom Stephen Smellie mentioned, somebody on an average salary in the mid-20s or folk on 40 grand who, with fiscal drag, are heading towards being hit with the high income tax rate?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Ross Greer
I want to jump back to something that Clare Reid said a couple of moments ago. She listed areas, particularly in enterprise and skills, where public spending will be reduced over the next couple of years. I do not think that anybody will pretend that that is a good thing, but the SCDI is also against any new business taxes and opposed not only to increasing income tax but to having fiscal drag through keeping income tax rates as they are. If there are areas where you are looking to increase spending and there is new revenue, the conclusion must be that there are areas of public spending elsewhere that you would deprioritise. Could you expand on that a little bit? Otherwise, I am not sure how to resolve your tax position and the spending priorities that you have outlined.
11:00