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 825 contributions
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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Bill Kidd
Thank you. I have a further question on the back of what Mhairi Maguire said. She has a legal background, but some trusts might not have people in the same position. Could it be written into the bill that access to doctors, psychologists and mental health officers would be a good thing, so as to give confidence to people who are in such positions?
Would anyone like to comment?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Bill Kidd
That is very helpful. I direct my next question to any panellist who might have something to say on the matter. If it were to be considered that involving doctors, psychologists or mental health officers would be the right route to go down, should that be formally written into the bill? If not, what further support or input would you want a trustee to have in making such decisions? Having heard what Mhairi Maguire said, it seems to me that nothing further needs to be included. Is that correct?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Bill Kidd
On the back of that, if you do not mind, how did you handle that, legally? Did you feel confident in doing that? Were you supported, legally?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Bill Kidd
Thanks to all of the guests; they have provided us with some interesting evidence that will help the bill. However, there may be omissions to the bill that people have views on. Although Christmas is not coming soon, what would witnesses like to have seen in part 1 of the bill that has not been mentioned so far, and is there anything that should be included?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Bill Kidd
We are nearly at the end of the meeting, so do not worry, but you were, of course, invited here because of your roles in relation to trusts, even if those are not always entirely direct roles.
However, you will be aware that part 2 of the bill is on succession law. We have heard evidence from others about that, including to do with section 72. People believe that a distinction should be made between spouses and civil partners who were living with the deceased at the time of their death and spouses and civil partners who were living separately and had no intention of continuing in a relationship. That is an example of the kind of succession law debate that we have been having. Do you want to mention anything with regard to that element of the bill?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Bill Kidd
My question is about incapable trustees. On 9 May, we had an evidence session with legal academics, who offered a more relaxed view than some other legal stakeholders on whether there were risks associated with sections 7 and 12 of the bill for incapable adults.
For those of you who are trustees, would you feel confident in your ability as trustees to assess whether a fellow trustee was incapable, as required in sections 7 and 12 of the bill? Would input from a doctor, psychologist or mental health officer be helpful to you in that regard? If so, should that be formally written into the bill?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Bill Kidd
Okay. Thank you.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Bill Kidd
Minister, you have slightly pre-empted what I was going to ask about, but I have a couple of questions, which I will put together to see what we can get back.
You say that you have had meetings with the FE and HE sectors following the announcement. I have two questions about that: what particular concerns were raised, and are you aware of specific colleges and universities that now need financial assistance as a result of the decision?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Bill Kidd
I can understand that that is the case, but the £26 million loss will impact further on that—at least I presume that it will. That is basically the worry. Did you say that you are going to meet the unions?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Bill Kidd
We have been informed by Unison, as well as by some people who attend or work in City of Glasgow College, that there will be job losses through compulsory redundancies and a lack of capability to agree voluntary severance payments. People are in danger of losing their jobs—indeed, they have been told that they are going to lose their jobs—and that was on the cards even before the cut in money. Have you not heard anything about that? I think that you will be hearing about it very soon.
