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
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I have another couple of questions, convener. I do not know whether you want me to keep them until the end or to ask them now.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
So it should not impact on next year’s budget. I understand that I have been put on audio only, which is probably a blessed relief to the public and everybody present.
The Barnett consequentials funding that has come in to help to allay national insurance costs has not been passed on to local authorities, as it has been south of the border. Can you confirm that that is the case? What are the reasons behind that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I have one specific question and a couple of slightly more general questions, so I will try to get through them quickly.
As has been mentioned, VisitScotland’s budget has been cut, and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has highlighted the pressure on local authority budgets. Given the importance of tourism to the region that I represent and which your constituency is in, what concerns do you have about the impact of those cuts across the Highlands and Islands?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
To clarify, you are suggesting that the funding for that has been passed on, but it has been passed on in general budget terms rather than through specific ring-fenced funding.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I will do—thank you.
I seek clarification from the cabinet secretary on a couple of points. On “Representing Border”, you suggested that you had allocated every penny of the budget and that, because it was a fixed budget, you could not create more money overnight, but then around £100 million-worth of funding for business support was found from what you called “existing budgets”. Which budget lines did that £100 million come out of?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
At last week’s session, I asked Professor Bell and George Peretz about transparency. I highlighted Prestwick Airport Ltd, GFG Alliance and Ferguson Marine as examples in which large amounts of taxpayer money has been used to support businesses and there have been, in some cases, concerns about the transparency of those deals and the lack of ability to scrutinise them for a number of reasons. Will the bill improve transparency on the use of public money? Do you have any concerns in that regard?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Will the bill improve transparency and the ability to scrutinise deals, or will it not have an impact? I am thinking in particular about the GFG Alliance case.
Economy and Fair Work Committee (Virtual)
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Thank you. That is extremely helpful.
Economy and Fair Work Committee (Virtual)
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Your concern is that there will not be a single body of the type that we had previously to determine that a public authority is not operating in a way that any normal bank would operate in because it is taking on a risk that a normal bank would not take on, or putting in terms that a normal bank would not put in.
Economy and Fair Work Committee (Virtual)
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Before I ask my main question, I have a supplementary question for Councillor Heddle about engagement and consultation. It is good to see another Orcadian on the panel. I hope that that will continue. The Scottish Government has a position on the bill, and we have the minister coming in next week. What consultation has there been with COSLA or with Orkney Islands Council and the other councils in Scotland on the bill and the Scottish Government’s response?
