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 766 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Chief Entrepreneurial Adviser to the Scottish Government
Meeting date: 11 January 2023
Jamie Halcro Johnston
On the questions that were asked earlier, you spoke about the process of your appointment and about having 30 years—decades—of experience in business. Would you have employed someone without having a formal interview process?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Chief Entrepreneurial Adviser to the Scottish Government
Meeting date: 11 January 2023
Jamie Halcro Johnston
We have talked about matters such as the work that is done by the Scottish National Investment Bank. However, how important in encouraging entrepreneurs is the business support that is provided by regional enterprise bodies such as Highlands and Islands Enterprise and South of Scotland Enterprise? Support can be given in many areas, but how important are those bodies? What do you see as being their role in the future?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Chief Entrepreneurial Adviser to the Scottish Government
Meeting date: 11 January 2023
Jamie Halcro Johnston
You have talked about confidence. Scotland has a great entrepreneurial past; I am from the northern isles, and I think that we still consider ourselves as entrepreneurs, with companies such as Kyloe Partners in Kirkwall. On the point that you have made to Maggie Chapman, it is vital, as you said, that we do not just focus on the central belt, the north-east or areas that perhaps have traditional bases.
What do you see as the barriers to your delivering an entrepreneurship agenda across the whole of Scotland and, in particular, in remote areas?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Business Investment
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Good morning, witnesses. I will come on to non-domestic rates in a moment. What one thing would you have liked to have seen in the budget that was not there? We have mentioned hospitality and tourism, which are two areas with particular pressures. In relation to upcoming Government regulations, projects or policies, whether that be short-term lets, the deposit return scheme or anything such as that, are there any areas of particular concern about new barriers or burdens that are coming up? I go to Stacey Dingwall first on that question.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Business Investment
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Fergus Mutch, I understand that you are back with us. I would like to put that question to you. Did you hear it?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Business Investment
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Clare Reid, do you want to come in?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Business Investment
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I turn to the re-evaluation of non-domestic rates. This question is for Fergus Mutch and then for Stacey Dingwall. What are your thoughts or concerns about that re-evaluation? Did the budget go far enough? Has it allayed any fears?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
What will be the likely increase in the number of people who decide to go down the route of MAP bankruptcy as a result of the removal of the minimum debt threshold? Do you have any expectations as to how that number might increase and how that might impact debt arrangement scheme agreements and the choice between that and making an application for bankruptcy? Has there been any analysis of that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Business Investment
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Fergus Mutch, do you want to answer that question as well?
There is no sound from Fergus. We will move on to Caroline Currie.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
The fee going up from £300 to £750 is a 150 per cent increase, which is quite large. You talk about the impact, but, given that the thresholds for who can access minimal asset process bankruptcy are being reduced, that will put a considerable extra burden on creditors who are already likely to lose money—after all, as you rightly say, a large number of cases do not result in money coming back. How do you justify that, given that it will be a huge extra burden on creditors when there is potential for a large increase in the number of people going into MAP bankruptcy?
