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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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Minister and Laura Meikle, thank you very much for your time. Members, are we content to consider the evidence that we have heard at a future meeting?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Our final new petition is PE1992, lodged by Laura Hansler, which is on dualling the A9 and improving road safety. I welcome to the committee Murdo Fraser and—a regular visitor to the committee—Rhoda Grant.
The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to deliver on the commitment that it made in 2011 and address safety concerns on the A9 by publishing a revised timetable and detailed plan for dualling each section; completing the dualling work by 2025; and creating a memorial to the people who have lost their lives in road traffic incidents on the A9.
As I said, we are joined in our consideration of the petition by our colleagues Murdo Fraser and Rhoda Grant.
The petition has been somewhat superseded by the Minister for Transport’s statement to the Parliament on 8 February, in which it was confirmed that the 2025 completion date is now “no longer achievable”. Nevertheless, I will set out some of the background to the petition, before opening it up to wider discussion.
In the background information to the petition, the petitioner, Laura Hansler, tells us that the A9 dual action group was formed to raise awareness of the number of people who have lost their lives on the A9 and of the need for a mandatory safety feature to be deployed to reduce further loss of life, as well as to explore whether there should be an investigation into the procurement procedures that are associated with the project.
In its initial response to the petition, which was received prior to the minister’s statement, the Scottish Government highlighted the short-term road safety measures that have been developed by Transport Scotland to take account of the recent trend of fatal accidents on the A9.
The response states the Scottish Government’s firm commitment to completing the dualling of the A9 between Perth and Inverness, albeit without providing a revised timetable on when the work is likely to be completed.
Following the minister’s statement, the committee received a submission from the petitioner in which she calls on us to consider a public inquiry into the matter.
I open up the discussion to members.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Do colleagues have any other suggestions? We could write to organisations including COSLA, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, the General Teaching Council for Scotland, the Scottish Catholic Education Service and the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child to seek their views on the issues raised within the petition. Do members agree with those suggestions?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Welcome to the third meeting of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee in 2023. I have apologies from Jackson Carlaw, so, as deputy convener, I am convening today.
The first item on our agenda this morning is a decision on whether to take item 4 in private.? Do we agree to do so?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Our first continued petition today is PE1948, lodged by Alex O’Kane, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to encourage Police Scotland to review its practices for dealing with unexplained deaths, from initial recovery through to the support that is offered to family members.
We are joined this morning by Stephanie Bonner, who is here to tell us about what change she believes is needed, following her own personal experience. Thank you for your courage in coming to give evidence this morning, Stephanie. We appreciate you taking the time to speak with us.
I also welcome members of the public who are here to support the petition and Stephanie.
Stephanie, I believe you have a brief opening statement. Would you like to read it out? Just take your time.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Stephanie, before we draw the evidence session to a close, is there anything that we have missed or that you would like to say?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Thank you for that. Do we all agree on those recommendations?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
PE1913, which was lodged by Wendy Swain, calls on the Scottish Parliament to?urge the Scottish Government to create a separate department in Social Security Scotland that will fast-track future adult disability payment applications for people with a cancer diagnosis while they are undergoing treatment.
At our previous consideration of the petition, we agreed to write to Social Security Scotland highlighting the concerns of the petitioner and the recommendations for system improvements that are set out in Macmillan Cancer Support’s submission.
In response, Social Security Scotland has confirmed that it will publish quarterly statistics and that the information that is available will be expanded as it continues to collect more data. That will include information on processing times. The response outlines its work to address the issues that are raised by Macmillan Cancer Support’s recommendations.
The petitioner’s recent submission highlights her on-going concern about rejected applications for disability payments through the personal independence payment.
Do members have any comments or suggestions for action?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Stephanie, thank you very much for coming and giving us evidence. I know it is a really difficult time for you and it is difficult to go back through it.
Thank you also to the people in the public gallery for coming to support Stephanie Bonner and the petition—it is greatly appreciated. I suspend the meeting to allow Stephanie to leave.
10:18 Meeting suspended.10:22 On resuming—
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
David Torrance
Could the statutory guidance on nutritional requirements for food and drink in schools be revised to address the concerns that Callum Isted raised in the petition?
