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 (Virtual)
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Jamie Halcro Johnston
My main question is for Professor Bell and George Peretz. We have seen hundreds of millions of pounds of Scottish Government money and support, both directly and through loans, going to a number of different companies over the past year, including Prestwick Airport, GFG Alliance and Ferguson Marine, to name but a few. Issues have been raised time and again about scrutiny of those agreements and transparency. How might the bill impact on scrutiny of such deals? Could it impact on existing deals such as those that I mentioned, given that further support is either agreed or likely to be agreed for some of those companies? Is the inclusion of greater oversight in the bill important?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 15 December 2021
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Good morning. My first question is directed at Nick Shields. We have covered the opportunities that exist to strengthen Scottish supply chains. What are public bodies doing to encourage inward investors to use Scottish supply chains for components and the like?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 15 December 2021
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I represent the Highlands and Islands. We have touched on examples of manufacturing and business being done in some of the more remote parts of Scotland, but there are, obviously, still barriers. Starting with Professor Ridgway, will you outline some of the barriers to remote areas, particularly the Highlands and Islands—the islands specifically—being part of the supply chain? What opportunities are still there?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 15 December 2021
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Are there areas in which there are still gaps or in which more can still be done?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 15 December 2021
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Does Professor Bomphray want to add to that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Good morning, Stephen. It is good to see you—I hope that you are doing well. I have a really quick question, which is a bit of a devil’s advocate one. I agree that the more that we can take opportunities for local production and local building, the better.
However, when prices from abroad reduce, what is to stop you, as a builder, and any company that provides supplies going back to the lowest common denominator? I do not necessarily mean “lowest common denominator”, but if there was a 20 to 30 per cent difference between a supply that was produced in Scotland or elsewhere in the UK and a supply that you could get from abroad, surely you and any other business would look at the cheaper option, particularly given your concerns about the costs of building affordable housing.
10:15Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Start the stopwatch. I have two questions for Stephen Kemp, but the other witnesses can come in if we have time. My first question is a bit of an odd one, and you might or might not have an opinion on it.
In places such as Orkney there are companies of one or two individuals or, more likely a larger group, that might buy a plot, build a house, sell it and move on to the next one. I imagine that they will be particularly impacted by supply chain issues, because they do not have the space or the resources to buy in bulk. How might they be impacted, in Orkney or further afield?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I will move on to my main question. As you pointed out and as we have covered in the committee before, places such as Orkney are at the end of the supply chain, which causes particular issues. For example, you talked about getting younger people involved in the sector. Obviously, infrastructure, roads, ferries and so on can add to costs. Do you have any comments on what we can do to improve the infrastructure of the supply chain and reduce those costs?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Jamie Halcro Johnston
If it is harder to get people and materials out there, is there a risk that they may, now or in the future, pay a premium for being on the islands at a time when we want to make sure that people can stay in our outer isles?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 1 December 2021
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Yes. The Highlands and Islands were mentioned, as were islands issues. I represent the Highlands and Islands. Sometimes, we feel that we are at the end of any supply chain, but we know the work that goes in to deliver to us.
We have talked about infrastructure. What infrastructure improvements do you want? If we do not see those changes, where are we likely to be? Might we see some people pulling out of delivering to the Highlands and Islands? Are we likely to see prices increase or choices being limited?
