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 1119 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Paul Sweeney
It would involve us identifying health and social care partnerships that are not achieving the MAT standards and inviting the management of those health and social care partnerships to give evidence on why that is a problem.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Paul Sweeney
I am sympathetic to the petition and the public interest in it, and I agree with the recommendations and proposed actions thus far. It might also be prudent to inform the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee of the petition, because that committee has a locus in this area of work. We should also perhaps invite the Scottish Law Commission to give its view and ask it whether it has done any projects in this area. Changes in this area would usually come through in a Law Commission bill.
As the petitioner is present, I point out that it might be worth exploring the member’s bill route and engaging a sponsoring member of Parliament to pursue the issue. That would also involve engaging the non-Government bills unit, and it might be an opportunity to drive the agenda further. Certainly, the petition could help in that regard. That is just another avenue by which Parliament can give effect to such changes.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Paul Sweeney
Although I note the point about parliamentary time, the ideal solution would be to do the groundwork through the member’s bill route. The Government might adopt the legislation and take time to progress it if we cajole it a bit.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Paul Sweeney
Is there a successor to the Milk Marketing Board? Does that exist any more, or was that function disbanded long ago? I remember that there was a national authority that dealt with milk production.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Paul Sweeney
Dairy UK is the national trade association, so it might be worth asking it the question, too. I was just looking online to see whether I could find out more while we were talking.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Paul Sweeney
I agree with the recommendations that Mr Torrance suggests. Furthermore, I suggest that we consider direct engagement with health and social care partnerships, where there are clear deficiencies in implementation of the related MAT standards that we are discussing. Perhaps we could seek evidence directly from those health and social care partnerships about what the blockages and impediments are, which could offer us a way to be useful in getting delivery expedited.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Paul Sweeney
To follow up on that point, what was interesting in the correspondence from NHS Grampian was the point that it is seeking to implement a controlled drug licence by the end of February. It is almost offering itself as a pilot of how to rapidly implement a controlled drug licence. When that happens, it would be helpful to get an insight from the health board and the relevant health and social care partnership as to how they achieved that and what the impediments were.
That might offer an insight for the minister and, indeed, the Parliament into how to speed up the process for other health boards and other health and social care partnership areas so that we can try to get this rolled out. It seems that that was the key sticking point that was identified in the correspondence, so if we find out how to break through that bureaucratic issue, we could focus on that.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Paul Sweeney
I can understand the point about whether we will be able to get anywhere with the petition. However, I am curious as to why there is a difference between the jurisdictions and why it is not seen as such an issue in other parts of the UK as it is here. Also, does the farming industry have a view on whether a change in policy would improve its commercial opportunities?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 10 January 2023
Paul Sweeney
Mr Stewart, you said that Parliament might interfere with what people with lived experience want, but surely it is the role, not of ministers, but of Parliament, as the ultimate democratic body in the land, to be the arbiter of that matter.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 10 January 2023
Paul Sweeney
What assurance can you provide to workers that the co-design process will begin promptly, what assurances can you give them that their recommendations will be listened to by ministers and what role can Parliament have in ensuring that that is done?
