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 1499 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
I want to focus on the specific example of the Scottish National Investment Bank. The rules are certainly not yet clear as to what determines market failure. SNIB was set up when we were in the EU, when there was a clear set of rules in that regard. The bill has now passed its third reading in the House of Commons, but we have no certainty whatsoever on the rules relating to market failure. We heard in last week’s evidence that that could impact and limit our net zero ambitions. Do you have any specific concerns about SNIB, given its importance to Scotland’s economic development?
Economy and Fair Work Committee (Virtual)
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
I noticed that, when you appeared in front of the Public Bill Committee at Westminster on 26 October, you stated:
“From the point of the view of the devolved Administrations, for example, the passage of the Bill will still leave them pretty much in the dark as to what they can and cannot do.”—[Official Report, Subsidy Control Public Bill Committee, 26 October 2021; c 12, Q8.]
Do you stand by the observation that you made then?
Economy and Fair Work Committee (Virtual)
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
Thank you. I am aware of time, so I will stop there.
Economy and Fair Work Committee (Virtual)
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
How have we ended up in the position in which the bill will go through its second reading later this month—next week, I think—yet we still do not have the necessary level of definition? It is possible that the bill could go all the way through and, under what is proposed at the moment, it will be left to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to make the decisions. I do not want to put words in your mouth, but the bill seems to have the potential for bypassing ministers in the UK Government, never mind the Scottish Parliament, altogether. How on earth have we ended up in this position?
Economy and Fair Work Committee (Virtual)
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
Before we hear from others, do you think that, if the SNIB is fundamentally constrained to operating in areas of market failure, that could—from a risk perspective—have a cooling-off effect for the bank? Obviously, the bank’s risk assessments will be tightly honed, given the nature of what it is doing.
Economy and Fair Work Committee (Virtual)
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
I see that George Peretz wants to come in.
Economy and Fair Work Committee (Virtual)
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
I am keen for others to have the chance to respond. The point that we started with is that, first and foremost, the detail to establish a scheme needs to be in place, and it appears that that detail, whether specifically for the SNIB as regards its role in relation to market failure and beyond, is not yet clearly established.
I am aware that other members want to come in, but before I give way to them, perhaps Professor Fothergill or Mr Heddle would like to respond to my question about the SNIB.
Economy and Fair Work Committee (Virtual)
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
Good morning, everybody. We have received quite a few submissions about the bill’s potential impact on economic development. In his submission, Professor Bell points out the difference between horizontal and vertical development. It is perhaps a matter of regret that we do not have a representative of the Scottish National Investment Bank on the panel. As you will be aware, the SNIB involves an investment by the Scottish Government of £2 billion over 10 years, which is a serious amount of public money. In its submission, the bank says:
“It goes without saying that if development banks are to be constrained to operating in areas of market failure, the new UK Subsidy Control Regime must be at least as wide as its predecessor, and/or sufficient discretion to public bodies and devolved administrations afforded.”
I want to get your views on the Scottish National Investment Bank in particular, as it seems to be a slightly different model, given that it was set up specifically to aid economic development in Scotland in a key way, not least on net zero. I imagine that, if that is the case for the SNIB, it will also be an issue for the British Business Bank. Perhaps Professor Fothergill or Professor Bell might like to answer in the first instance.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Fiscal Framework (Independent Report)
Meeting date: 11 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
I can see that David Phillips wants to come in. He has put an R in the chat box.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Fiscal Framework (Independent Report)
Meeting date: 11 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
I have a question for all three of the Davids, but perhaps Professor David Bell could start. We have focused on Scotland and Wales, but I am interested in what helpful precedents operate elsewhere in the world, particularly those that deal with issues around fiscal transfers and divergence over time. I feel as though we are dancing on the head of a pin, particularly in relation to indexation methods, and some of those problems are not unique. I would appreciate some thoughts from Professor Bell on that in relation to the review.
