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 763 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Michael Matheson
That is helpful. To help me to understand that further, is the priority to get greater diversity of ownership on large-scale landholdings, or is it about helping to support diversification for communities that may have an interest in areas of land that they are unable to access at present?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Michael Matheson
I will pick up on the theme of the diversification of land ownership. It has been a long-standing policy intention to see greater diversification of land ownership in Scotland. Kevin Stewart set out clearly how land continues to be concentrated in the hands of very few owners. From my perspective, it would be helpful to understand what “good” looks like. What would good diversification of land ownership in Scotland look like, compared with what we have at present? How would that be monitored post implementation of the bill over the course of, let us say, the next five or 10 years to see whether it is making progress?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Michael Matheson
You mentioned the duration of land management plans. As it stands, the bill envisages them being reviewed and, if necessary, revised every five years. Some of the evidence that the committee has heard suggests that five years is too short a timeframe in relation to managing land. I am told that forestry plans, for example, are often for 20 or 30 years. I suppose that part of the challenge is whether five years is an appropriate timeframe in which to look at revising a management plan and incurring further costs when that might not be realistic. Are you open to the idea of increasing that timeframe for revising land management plans?
I am conscious that, if you are open to that, it becomes more difficult. The longer the period during which a plan is due to be implemented, the more difficult it is to be specific, because circumstances change. If you were minded to look at extending the revising period, is there a need to balance how specific a land management plan can be over a longer period of time?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Michael Matheson
If we get to the point where someone is the third-largest landowner in the country but does not have a land management plan to their name, while someone who happens to have one piece of land that is just over the threshold has to go to the extent of having a full land management plan, there will be a real inequity to that. That needs to be addressed.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Appointment of the Chair of Environmental Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Michael Matheson
Okay. Thanks.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Michael Matheson
In your view, the transfer test is a public interest test. It is not a public interest test that applies at the point of acquisition of the land, however. Why is that the case?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Michael Matheson
Can you think of any reasons why you would not incorporate the commission’s recommendations with regard to how the commissioner operates?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Michael Matheson
Okay. Thanks.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Michael Matheson
I understand that, but do we want, for example, the third-largest landowner in Scotland potentially not to be required to produce any land management plans because every parcel of land that they own falls under the threshold? Is that seriously what we are trying to achieve?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Michael Matheson
We could spell that out: we could put the duty in in an amendment that could cover anything from protecting and enhancing human rights to maintaining or restoring biodiversity. We could spell it out if we wanted to.
