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 841 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 1 March 2023
Jamie Halcro Johnston
It is a brief question, convener. I could come in on the issue of hydrogen, but I will not do so, as we will probably be covering it a bit more later.
I have a question for Dominic Pritchard on infrastructure. Is there a slightly uncomfortable question that should be asked here? Are some of the facilities that we have—I am thinking of the plant in Machrihanish, which was previously Vestas—simply not suitable for the level of work that we need to be doing? I think that someone talked about eight jackets. During the North Sea oil and gas boom, there was a lot of investment in sites, particularly in my Highlands and Islands region, some of which are still available. Are some of the sites that we have—say, at Methil—really suitable for what we are doing, or do we need almost to relook at the issue and investigate where we can invest and essentially build factories?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Just before I start, I note—I do not mean to sound unfair—that you have come to a committee meeting on the disability employment gap but you cannot tell us the number of disabled people who work in your department and you think that there is data on rural areas and wider afield but you do not have that information to hand. I would have thought that that information would be fairly standard in trying understand the picture across Scotland, and that you would be able to provide it. It would certainly be helpful to get whatever information you have. Others have mentioned data: I wonder whether that shows that we are not getting full data. How can we look at the problems if we do not have that information?
I will following on from what was said about there being a postcode lottery. You represent a seat in the Highlands and Islands and I represent the region. It is harder to deliver services in rural areas and it is harder to access services in rural areas. The issue goes wider than just the services themselves; it involves transport, connectivity and information technology, as others have said. How do you liaise with others—such as the transport minister or those who are responsible for digital—to ensure that the work that you have responsibility for is deliverable through others’ areas of responsibility?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Jamie Halcro Johnston
You are the minister, so I would have thought that you might have that information, but I will move on.
We know from the budget that there was a £53 million cut to employability funding. Several issues have been raised about the short timescales to access funding. What impact, given the cut, do you think that will have on the sector and the schemes that have been delivered, and on the wider issue of the employability gap?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I will go back to the point that Colin Smyth made. You suggested that you would look into individual cases that were mentioned because you are not aware of them. However, surely you are aware that the sector has raised issues about the length of funding parcels, because they are looking for funder for longer than a year. What on-going discussions are you having with the sector on that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I might be wrong, but I think that Mr Simpson’s question was about your department. I can check. It would certainly be helpful to get that breakdown.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Jamie Halcro Johnston
If it does not exist, do you think it should exist? Should you know the number of disabled people in your department, given that it is your responsibility?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Jamie Halcro Johnston
So, it was a simple question of budget, rather than a lack of uptake of potential funding?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Are you aware of representations from the sector that there is a need for longer-term funding?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 25 January 2023
Jamie Halcro Johnston
On what you were saying previously, I imagine that all the parts have to be right, otherwise the whole system breaks down.
I will go back to funding and come to Emma Congreve. Before I was an MSP, we were talking about multiyear funding and allowing organisations such as yours to make decisions that would have consistency over a number of years. Has there been any improvement in that respect? Is the situation the same or is it getting worse? What is the impact of that not quite hand-to-mouth, but short-term, funding?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 25 January 2023
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Good morning, and thank you very much. There is some really interesting stuff coming out today, and some of the areas that I was going to ask you about have already been covered.
I represent the Highlands and Islands, which is obviously a large area with remote rural populations. You have talked about postcode lotteries and about aftercare and how important it is. I can imagine people who live in very rural communities having to travel, and I wonder whether there are other barriers. What are the particular barriers that people in remote rural communities face? How can we address them?
