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 1296 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Emma Harper
Thank you.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 1 March 2023
Emma Harper
I will be really quick because a lot of information has been covered already.
I am thinking about data management and collection. Jackie McCreery said that two thirds of dairy farms have done a carbon audit. However, I am thinking about measuring other emissions reduction. There are biostimulants, such as those produced by Tricet, such as Pro-Fortis and Pro-Soil. There are also other products for emissions reduction, such as yeast-based products for ruminants like Biocell. Then there are other products such as Slurrycell, which helps to reduce nitrogen emissions in slurry.
Do we measure that kind of stuff? Do we know what farmers are using Slurrycell or Biocell? Do we know who is using biostimulants, which are not organic but are regenerative and will help to reduce nitrogen?
I will direct that question to Andrew Moir first and then Jackie McCreery.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 1 March 2023
Emma Harper
Does the way that we measure and gather data need to be flexible because of the technology and because some products are not yet licensed for emissions reduction in dairy cattle? Am I right to say that everything has to be flexible and must be allowed to evolve as the science, technology and support enable emissions reduction by farmers?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 1 March 2023
Emma Harper
I know that we are conscious of time, so I can stop there.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 1 March 2023
Emma Harper
I want to pick up on Jim Fairlie’s questions and ask about emissions in other countries. In debates in the chamber, we have talked about how much water it takes to produce a litre of almond milk. It takes about 101 gallons of water to make a cup of almond milk, which is not even made in this country. In comparison, we grow grass really well in this country, and that can support our diet.
At the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, Alice Stanton, an expert witness, talked about the misinformation that consuming red meat causes cancer, as there is now evidence that that information is not quite accurate.
How can we support food production and emissions reduction? How do we compare with other countries on those issues?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
United Kingdom Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 1 March 2023
Emma Harper
I know that I am not a regular attendee of the committee—I am here as a substitute—but I would like to comment. In the notification, it says that the SI is to
“adjust the level of European seabass that may be caught within British fishing limits”.
I am aware that only one licence has been issued for catching sea bass in Scotland, so, when the notification talks about adjusting, does that mean both up and down?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Emma Harper
Good morning, everybody. I have a quick question about the remit of the patient safety commissioner. Sometimes the impact of care or—I should say—unsafe care is not directly or overtly evident. I note that Dr Williams suggested that the commissioner’s remit should include advocating for patients. I am thinking of groups or populations in which harm has occurred as a result of, say, a lack of compassion or some other issue that is not directly related to safety. Would you expect the patient safety commissioner’s remit to be wide enough to cover the patient population to whom overt harm might not have been caused?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Emma Harper
It is for Dr Williams.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Petitions
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Emma Harper
I did not think that I would be talking about roads in Dumfries and Galloway—the A75 and the A77—at a meeting of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, but the issue is relevant to the many challenges with recruitment and retention.
We must remember that we have the Scottish graduate entry medicine programme. It would be really good to hear how that is working. What is the retention level? Where is that programme doing well? That is part of it. There are also programmes for trained general nurses to become midwives and vice versa, although that is not happening in my part of the South Scotland region because Dumfries and Galloway was not selected for the dual training approach.
Work is being taken forward, but it will not be an overnight fix. I support doing whatever we need to do to look at rural health and social care.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Emma Harper
I welcome the witnesses to the Scottish Parliament—it is good to have you here. I am interested in how your remit and role compare with the proposed remit of the patient safety commissioner for Scotland, which seems to be a bit wider. Do you have an opinion on whether there would be any benefits or drawbacks of the remit being a bit different in Scotland? Has your remit given you enough to work on, without considering wider issues?
