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 775 contributions
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COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Communication of Public Health Information Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Brian Whittle
Gillian McElroy, it strikes me that that kind of evolving situation would create issues for the organisation that you look after.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Communication of Public Health Information Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Brian Whittle
The information evolved, so what was right at the start of the pandemic became wrong as our knowledge improved. Initially, a simple thing like wearing a mask was not proved to have an impact, then it was proved to have an impact. That was difficult for somebody like me, who is not in a vulnerable category, so how difficult was it for people who are clinically vulnerable to accept that kind of change? How could Government change its approach and what lessons can we learn to make the messaging clearer?
I am afraid that that question is for Dr Witcher again.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Communication of Public Health Information Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Brian Whittle
We do not hear much nowadays about the continuing risk of Covid for certain elements of society. We talk about new normals and about going back to what we used to do before the pandemic, without recognising that some people in society are still at risk. What does the new normal really look like for those who are still at risk? Will we require a societal reaction to that? Should we all be asked to adjust our behaviour to protect those who are most at risk? Adam Stachura has been sitting there quietly for a while, so I turn to him first.
10:45COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Communication of Public Health Information Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Brian Whittle
I was hoping that you would solve all our problems in a couple of minutes. [Laughter.]
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Brian Whittle
Thank you very much, convener. I would just start by getting the committee to recognise that I represent the South Scotland region, which has, as my postbag reflects, a high propensity of wind farms. I was very interested in the question of the 50MW limit, given that we have Whitelee wind farm, which is the second biggest in Europe and sits just down the road from your constituency, convener, and up the road from mine. It is therefore obviously perfectly feasible to—
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Brian Whittle
I am not a silver medallist myself.
As the convener alluded to in his question, what people often share with me is the lack—or the feeling of a lack—of consultation with local communities, as well as their being bullied and steamrollered. In addition, even when the council declines to give planning permission, the decision is often and routinely overturned by the Scottish Government. There is just a lack of connection between local communities and the planning decision itself.
With regard to Mr Ewing’s point, communities have to benefit. The current situation has been described to me as the energy being taken on motorways away from where it is generated and into the central belt, leaving the communities where it is generated running on B roads. It is a very good analogy. It is extremely important that communities feel engaged and that they benefit, which brings us to the point that has been discussed about community shared ownership and whether it should be made mandatory.
I was interested in Mr Ewing’s questions, which I want to follow up on, about using the planning process to encourage wind farm operators to ensure benefit to the local community. Andy Kinnaird responded by highlighting the fact that planning decisions relate to the use of land. Surely the use of land requirement is there for the benefit of the community at large, so I do not see how the two can be divorced. If planning applications were passed, or not, depending on whether there was a shared community benefit element to the proposal, that would surely encourage wind farm operators to follow that route.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Brian Whittle
It was the biggest, but I have since been corrected, as there is apparently now a bigger one in Holland.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Brian Whittle
I press amendment 4.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Brian Whittle
Will the Deputy First Minister take an intervention?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Brian Whittle
The point is that, especially around health, somebody has to gather and assess information and it should not be ministers who do that. You would rely, specifically, on your CMO to gather that information. Ultimately, when assessing a threat from, as you said, a multitude of potential inputs, surely it should be your CMO who advises you on the gathered evidence.
