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 751 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Alexander Stewart
I am delighted that we have had such a robust outcome so far, but it is important that we now seek further information. We should write to the Minister for Transport to find out about the process for appointments to the board of David MacBrayne Group and what work is being done to encourage candidates from communities. We can also ask for an update on the communities’ communication with ministers and with Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd with regard to the proposals that the petition sets out.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Alexander Stewart
I suggest that we write to stakeholders, seeking their views on the actions asked for in the petition. The committee could write to the Brain Charity, Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, PoTS UK, Professor Alan Carson and NHS National Services Scotland. We could also write to the petitioner, alerting them to the funding schemes that are available through the chief scientist office.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Alexander Stewart
I suggest that we write to the Scottish Government to ask how it intends to engage with stakeholders in its delivery of the commitment to explore options for the development of an accredited qualification and registration programme for additional support needs assistants, and how the petitioner can engage with the pupil support staff working group.
We could also write to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, seeking a view on the issues that are raised in the petition and requesting information on the frequency and cost of equal pay claims that have been lodged in relation to education support staff roles. In addition, we could write to the Scottish Social Services Council, seeking a view on the issues that are raised in the petition and requesting information on the requirements for and processes of registration.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Alexander Stewart
I suggest that we write to the UK Covid-19 therapeutics advisory panel, to seek information on the considerations that it has given to making Evusheld available as an antibody treatment to patients. We should also write to Blood Cancer UK and Kidney Research UK, to seek their views on the issues that have been raised by the petitioner. In addition, we should write to the Scottish Medicines Consortium to request the review of its decision to wait for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence report to provide access, via the NHS, to the Evusheld treatment for people who have zero or limited response to Covid-19 vaccinations. Finally, we should invite the petitioner and patient groups that campaign on the need for access to Evusheld to give evidence.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Alexander Stewart
The Scottish Government has launched a new suicide prevention strategy, which is its blueprint for what it wants to happen. Do you have any confidence in it?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Alexander Stewart
Who should the Scottish Government be talking to? You have given some compelling evidence, as an individual who has experienced trauma, but who else should the Scottish Government try to embrace to capture the real situation and circumstances out there?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Alexander Stewart
I thank the petitioner for her evidence and for her courage in saying what she has said today.
You have talked about failures such as being abandoned and being let down by the whole process, and you want to see changes and a review. The Scottish Government has already put in place some measures that you are probably well aware of. We have talked about suicide prevention, and there is also the final report of the Scottish mental health law review. You have probably seen all of those things.
What else would you like to see? You have talked today about some of the experiences of individuals. As we know, men seem to make up a much larger percentage of those who experience suicide situations and circumstances. You have touched on what you would like the review to deal with. I want to go back over where you think the gaps are, and where you would want to see the review progressing.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Alexander Stewart
As you have said, it has been quite a journey, but a very informative one. It is good that a reasonably large number of local authorities have come back to us to indicate where they stand and what the situation is.
It is appropriate that we now write to the Scottish Government to highlight the evidence that we have received and to set out recommendations for addressing the issues raised in the petition. I suggest that we also write to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee and the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee to share the evidence and our recommendations.
Members can clarify that with the committee clerks, who can put the information together. As I said, we have all been involved in what has been a very in-depth process, and it has been really quite successful. As a committee member, I have certainly learned a lot more about the whole issue, and it is vitally important that we can now give the evidence to the Scottish Government to highlight the issues that we have found.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Alexander Stewart
Yes, absolutely.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Alexander Stewart
We are now at the stage that, under standing order 17.5, the petition can be closed, on the basis that NatureScot routinely issues licence refusals, and that it has stated that its approach
“is always to explain to the applicants the reasons for the refusals against the relevant legal tests”,
which can include the objectives.
Also, a conservation objective would not apply to every licensing refusal, and therefore setting a mandatory requirement for NatureScot to include that in every refusal would not be appropriate.? For those reasons, I think that the petition should be closed under standing order 17.5.
