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 3156 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Bill
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Mark Ruskell
Yes, and it might well feed into what Ragne Low might want to talk about. I want to probe a little further on the changing nature of environmental assessments. Does the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill and its proposal to move to environmental objectives rather than follow European standards and processes of environmental and habitats regulation assessments form part of the concern here? With a shift in environmental assessments, could the answer to mitigation end up being different according to whether the secretary of state defines particular environmental objectives?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Bill
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Mark Ruskell
I think that you are recommending withholding consent on part 1 until it is amended so that Ofgem and the secretary of state can consider Scottish emissions reductions targets.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Bill
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Mark Ruskell
Good morning to you all.
I will start with a broad question, after which we can perhaps get into the specifics of certain amendments that you are looking for. Does the Energy Bill align with the energy strategy and just transition plan? Will it help to deliver the Scottish Government’s plan, or are there particular areas of divergence?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Bill
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Mark Ruskell
I have finished, convener.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Bill
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Mark Ruskell
Are there any other areas under part 1 of the bill that relate to the requirement to have cognisance of the Scottish targets? You mentioned carbon capture and storage in your opening statement.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Energy Bill
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Mark Ruskell
Okay. I know that colleagues will come back to that specific point later on.
I turn to an amendment that you have requested, which relates to the need for Ofgem and the secretary of state to consider Scottish emissions targets. What is the underlying concern there?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Mark Ruskell
I just want to check that we have the same understanding of the pressures that smaller regularly funded organisations are currently facing, particularly in relation to reserves. Most of those organisations are charities and they are regulated by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. If they dip into their reserves to a point at which they can no longer afford to make redundancy or pension payments, they will be acting outside charities law.
We are being told that that is an issue not for next year but for this year, even though there is some funding this year from Creative Scotland, which is coming from its own national lottery reserves, to keep those organisations going. Their boards are having to look now at their sustainability and whether they should keep going, even though they are currently getting money, because they are dipping into their reserves as a result of energy costs, having to pay staff an increase to meet the cost of living and other issues. Do you agree with that description? Do you understand the issue?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Mark Ruskell
That is good to hear, but I want to stick with the particular pressures that are being faced by regularly funded organisations and those that are in a similar position but get their funding from elsewhere. We heard last week about the disproportionate benefit that those organisations bring, and I want to relate that to the national performance framework indicators that the Government has set—attendance, participation, growth in the cultural economy and the number of people who work in the arts and culture.
Last week, we were told about an arts organisation that operates in Huntly that gets £100,000 a year. It supports 50 artists and puts on 200 events a year. It has a wider economic benefit and spin-off in that town and its surrounding rural communities. That organisation is hitting all the indicators and strengthening our performance in culture. Will there be an impact if even a small number of such organisations go to the wall?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Presidency of the Council of the European Union
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Mark Ruskell
It has been great having you here at this morning’s meeting. I want to go back to the issues of energy and the fit for 55 package. You emphasised Sweden’s role in finalising that, so is it now being implemented? I am interested to find out how that policy will reach out to countries that might be on the periphery of European membership or European Economic Area countries in order to meet energy needs within the European Union.
I was in Reykjavik at the Arctic Circle assembly last year, and there was a lot of interesting discussion around the potential for green hydrogen and renewables with sub-Arctic countries, industry, Governments and academics. I am interested to learn how, with green hydrogen and Europe’s hard-to-abate energy sectors, Europe will reach out to those countries that have renewable resources and draw them in to meet its energy needs.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Presidency of the Council of the European Union
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Mark Ruskell
Are there particular challenges with countries such as Norway, which is in the EEA, and the UK, which is now outside the European Union—Sweden is, of course, in the EU—in trying to devise an energy policy that incorporates and draws on the resources of all those countries, but which also designs rules that will ensure that energy needs are met?
