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 2616 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
It would be useful to get a written response on the corridor review of the A96, because, as I understand it, there are multiple options there, including the completion of a number of bypasses.
I want to take to the skies, cabinet secretary, and ask you about the aviation strategy. How will the aviation strategy dovetail with the climate change plan? I think that the aviation strategy was due earlier this year. We have seen a post-Covid bounceback in aviation and I am sure that the aviation sector would like a bye—it would like to see an increased number of flights and of passengers. How do we square that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
Does that mean that aviation emissions are going to drop—just as they are going to have to drop on the A9 and A96 and in farming and every other sector of our economy—or are they going to grow?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
So it could be that other sectors or other parts of the transport sector might need to have steeper reductions in emissions in order to deliver the benefits that aviation—[Inaudible.]
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
United Kingdom Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
I am content with that course of action. It is a slightly odd situation because of the defence-related nature of the chemical’s use. There is a lack of transparency there. Bob Doris’s points on that are well made. Perhaps there will be an issue about ensuring that there is adequate opportunity for scrutinising how the Ministry of Defence applies environmental management and wider health and safety requirements.
We are taking it on trust that there is a defence-related use of the chemical and that it will be dealt with in a responsible way, but there is no real way for us to scrutinise that. It is worth putting on the record that this is not the only area that I have come across in this committee and in predecessor committees where environmental regulation has come up against a defence exemption. You are left wondering what the actual protocols and protections are for workers and the environment in the Ministry of Defence and related industries.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
What route do Scottish Government ministers have to remove that air quality legislation from schedule 1? My understanding is that, in effect, it is a shared area of policy between the UK and Scottish Governments. What is the mechanism for removing it? Will it now go into a common framework conversation? The clock is ticking—as I understand it, we only have until 31 October at the latest, and there are summer recesses. We do not want this to fall off a cliff. What does the conversation look like?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
United Kingdom Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
Am I right to say that PFOA is what is known as a forever chemical and that those are being banned under the regulation on the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals? Is PFOA scheduled for withdrawal from the market under the REACH regulation?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
I presume that the Scottish Government is in contact with Environmental Standards Scotland. We received a letter from it that details particular concerns about what the loss of the national plans might involve, and particularly the removal of the public duty.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
Has there been a discussion specifically about the loss of the air quality plan? You said that the UK Government’s position is that it is in the schedule so it is going.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
Good morning, everybody. Are we still on track for a November launch date for the climate change plan?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
With previous plans, it has been very difficult to understand what is happening in some sectors, as there has been a lack of data and information. It is felt, rightly or wrongly, that, because there is a lack of data on farming and land use, for example, and a lack of clarity as to what individual actions will do to reduce carbon emissions, certain sectors are almost being given a bye or being let off. In other sectors, however, such as transport or heat in buildings, it is very clear what certain actions will do to reduce carbon emissions. How do we bring the data up to a point where we can understand exactly what is happening across different sectors and exactly what the various measures will achieve? There seems to be a bit of fuzziness in some areas around what making a change might result in—people are not exactly sure.
