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 1452 contributions
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Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Future Parliamentary Procedures and Practices Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Collette Stevenson
Good morning. I will explore your views on the virtual and hybrid way of working. As you have said, suggestion has been made of unintended consequences and disadvantages to some members if they are not present in Parliament itself. In some statistics, the House of Lords said that contributions had increased because there was a hybrid arrangement in place, albeit that there was a slight decline in the number of different members contributing. What are the barriers to change, and how can a balance be found?
I will direct my question to—I am sorry, but I have completely forgotten your name. I will direct my question to Mr Naughten—my apologies.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Future Parliamentary Procedures and Practices Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Collette Stevenson
Thanks, convener. Good morning to both witnesses. It is lovely to have you here.
I want to explore your views on virtual and hybrid proceedings. You have touched on several aspects and have mentioned the areas in which those approaches work. I know from some of the paperwork we got that there was a sense that there were more contributions throughout the pandemic and that the virtual voting system in the House of Lords increased contributions. Karen, is there is a shared view, in the legislation, on whether there should be different rules for virtual participation in chamber business and committees, to try to preserve debate in the chamber?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Future Parliamentary Procedures and Practices Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Collette Stevenson
We, in the Scottish Parliament, have a similar problem with regard to succinct questions and answers, so we are well aware of that issue.
What are your views on how decisions on virtual participation should be managed? Should those decisions be for the parties or the Speaker, or should that be left to the discretion of individuals?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Future Parliamentary Procedures and Practices Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Collette Stevenson
I have no further questions.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Future Parliamentary Procedures and Practices Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Collette Stevenson
Thanks very much, Karen. That was really interesting. One of my colleagues will probably come in on the aspect of scrutiny.
Lord Gardiner, what are your views on this question?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Future Parliamentary Procedures and Practices Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Collette Stevenson
I am sorry, convener, but there appears to be a problem. My screen just says, “The meeting will begin shortly” and there is no one on screen.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Future Parliamentary Procedures and Practices Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Collette Stevenson
Thank you. I am sorry to cut you off—did you want to continue?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Future Parliamentary Procedures and Practices
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Collette Stevenson
Good morning. To give you a bit of insight, I was newly elected in May last year. Prior to that I was—I still am—a councillor in South Lanarkshire. The reason why I mention that is because of my own experience of hybrid and virtual working here. It is all that I had known—it was like the Mary Celeste, which is a shame, because this is a public building, so there should be people in here. It is lovely to have people back in. Having had the experience of being a councillor was great, because I did not have the same peer support when I first came here. Being able to draw on my experience of being a councillor was great. I do not know what it would have been like for other newly elected members who did not have that experience.
I want to explore the challenges and the opportunities of having a digital Parliament and how successful the Scottish Parliament’s transition to hybrid and virtual working methods has been. You might also touch on how we measure that success and any mitigating factors that have presented themselves. You could include examples of the limits of the technology and perhaps of people’s ability to grasp that technology.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Future Parliamentary Procedures and Practices
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Collette Stevenson
You answered my next question, to a degree, which was about what other legislatures are doing, what lessons we can pick up from that and maybe what mistakes we have made.
In thinking about a digital Parliament that means more proceedings being held in hybrid form, what related issues should the Scottish Parliament consider for the future? You mentioned looking forward 10 years, and we have talked about spontaneity. I am very big on tone as well. At the Engender event that we had in person last night, I talked about—I am sorry, but I will be quite controversial here—misogyny in the tone particularly of men, especially in the chamber, and how we can tone that down. It can be quite intimidating for a lot of women MSPs.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Future Parliamentary Procedures and Practices
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Collette Stevenson
Good morning. You touched on equality being a key principle of politics. The make-up and logistics of Westminster are such that there are 650 members of Parliament and only 427 seats in the Commons chamber. From an equality point of view, that does not seem very equitable. Do you want to comment on that?
