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 498 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Maurice Golden
—but I have some general comments and a specific comment on your amendment 144. The minister may come to this, but I note that the Scottish Government previously ran a real nappy campaign—I was in charge of that almost 20 years ago—and there must be results from that, with behavioural analysis of many of the aspects. We do not have access to that, but the committee should. The Scottish Government also ran—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Maurice Golden
I was trying to be helpful in relation to amendment 144 and the minister’s response, but I will turn to my specific question. The amendment includes the word “free”. For completeness, is that part of the picture? You might want to increase the use of reusable nappies full stop. Does that make sense?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Maurice Golden
I struggle to call these targets because, with where we are now, they are just a very low bar—a bar so low that it could be a rope on the floor in terms of achieving the targets that I have set out. They are not my targets. They are the Scottish Government’s targets.
Amendment 15 is the Scottish Government’s target to reach 50 per cent of household waste being recycled. That was to be achieved by 2013, according to the Scottish Government. I am suggesting that it might be able to make it by 2025, which is actually 12 years after the Government said that it would meet the target. I think that that will probably happen anyway. That target is very easy to meet.
Similarly, amendment 16 is on a 60 per cent household recycling rate, which is not my target. It is the Scottish Government’s target from 2020, so that would be seven years late. Again, unless you are actively trying to push recycling rates down or are completely incompetent, you will meet that, so these are very easy amendments for anyone to make.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Maurice Golden
I think that we are just checking some procedural points—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Maurice Golden
Yes, I welcome that investment. There are some benefits to being an urban-based council in that when you roll out new kerbside infrastructure you can get benefits from rerouting, which is far more challenging in a more rural community or, indeed, our island communities. It is about infrastructure investment. It is also about linking that to kerbside communications with householders over what they can and cannot recycle, which I think have dropped off the entire Scottish Government agenda, not just for Glasgow but across Scotland. That communication can help to boost the rate.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Maurice Golden
There appears to have been a vast change in approach. It would be very easy and not costly to meet the 50 per cent household recycling target, which was to be achieved by 2013. I do not think that that would have to rely on investment. I will not name the local authority that was paying a waste contractor to collect air because it no longer had enough waste in its residual bin—we want to avoid that situation. However, as a result of the uncertainty and the unclear market signal that the Scottish Government has sent about what might be required, that could easily occur, which is incredibly concerning.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Maurice Golden
There is no locus in a human rights bill coming forward to the Parliament because, as we have heard on previous occasions, an intention to introduce a bill—even if it is mentioned in the programme for government—does not mean that a bill will be introduced. Therefore, we cannot predicate any decisions on something that we have not seen and might never see during this parliamentary session.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Maurice Golden
Yes, I wish to press amendment 215.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Maurice Golden
To be fair, the Scottish Government has not set that out as a policy, but it is the fact. Let us look at plastic recycling: 2 per cent of plastics that are collected for recycling in Scotland are recycled in Scotland. One could suggest that the Scottish Government is saying that we want to export all our waste and that not accepting the suggestion is evidence of that, because only 2 per cent of plastics are recycled here. I would love to see a plastics recycling facility in Scotland, which amendment 4 would not deliver, but it would signal that that is the direction of travel. However, it is clear that that is the opposite of the Scottish Government’s policy position, which is entirely a matter for it.
In closing, I seek to withdraw amendment 4.
Amendment 4, by agreement, withdrawn.
Amendment 124 not moved.
Amendment 100 moved—[Sarah Boyack]—and agreed to.
Amendment 191 not moved.
Amendments 101 to 103 moved—[Sarah Boyack]—and agreed to.
Amendment 142 moved—[Maurice Golden].
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Maurice Golden
I think, conversely, that what you are talking about is changing consumer behaviour. I would suggest that, when a consumer changes their behaviour to more green-friendly practices such as reuse and repair, they are more fastidious on their recycling as well. Therefore, even though I appreciate the argument, they are actually likely to recycle more. However, in terms of behaviour change, it is worthwhile analysis.
There is a big, Scotland-wide push around food waste because if we get our participation rates up that would certainly help. I think those aspects work in tandem. For example, the Scottish Government rolled out food waste collections at the same time as rolling out a campaign called “love food, hate waste” to get people to reduce the same food waste that it was beginning to trial collecting. Fife, and Perth and Kinross, did that back in 2005. I appreciate that the two aspects might appear to compete, but I think that they are complementary in boosting recycling rates. Also, in the context of my amendment 15, we are talking about a target of only 50 per cent. To give some idea of where we are, the national household recycling average is 43.4 per cent, so we are talking about a relatively small increase, compared with where we have come from.
I move amendment 15.
