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 1198 contributions
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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Jeremy Balfour
That was really helpful.
My final question is for Vicky Crichton. Secondary legislation powers are granted to your organisation, although I suspect that most MSPs are not aware of that. You have quite wide-ranging powers, as do other organisations. Do you feel that, in some way, MSPs should be more involved in that and should be consulted? Obviously, from your perspective, it is easier if we do not get involved at all, but perhaps you could lay aside your self-interest for a second. As a general point, we grant third parties quite a lot of powers without any kind of accountability back to Parliament—that applies even more to Westminster. On reflection from your experience, should your successor have more accountability?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Jeremy Balfour
Sorry—I could not see you.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Jeremy Balfour
Good morning. I want to follow up that point—and briefly, because I do not want to go too far down a rabbit hole.
In the witnesses’ opinion, given their expertise and knowledge, are we having more of these types of bills now than we had in, say, the 1980s and 1990s? If so, can they give us a reason why?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Jeremy Balfour
No, actually, it is a fair point to make. Parliament was set up on the presumption that members would lay aside their party politics and take much more of a scrutinising role as committee members, but I think that we have seen a change to that in the past 25 years.
I will move on, because I am conscious of time. One reason that the Scottish Government gives us for having framework bills is that much more scrutiny can be done once the bill has been passed—we can involve stakeholders, it can be co-designed, and all the other lingo that we use. Is that a reality for you? Would it be possible to do that heavy lifting—as Adam Stachura described it—before the legislation came to Parliament so that it could be put into primary legislation or is it easier to do it further down the road?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Jeremy Balfour
Thank you. I am conscious of the time, so I will leave it there.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Framework Legislation and Henry VIII Powers
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Jeremy Balfour
Thank you. I have just one final question.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 9 January 2025
Jeremy Balfour
Yes.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 9 January 2025
Jeremy Balfour
That would be helpful. Thank you.
Finally, I notice that the VoiceAbility contract has been extended by one year. What analysis was done in order to decide that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 9 January 2025
Jeremy Balfour
I notice that £4 million is ring fenced for a pilot scheme in relation to the Housing (Scotland) Bill. As far as I am aware, the scheme has not been announced to Parliament. However, I have had some discussion with the third sector, and it seems to be talking about some kind of scheme that will run for a year, starting in the spring of this year, as a trial to see how the legislation might work.
Can the cabinet secretary give us a wee bit more detail on that, such as the timeline and the thinking behind it? As we think about amendments to the bill at stages 2 and 3, how will they relate to a pilot scheme that will run beyond that time—unless there is to be a very late delivery of the bill?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 9 January 2025
Jeremy Balfour
Do you see it, then, as a pilot scheme that will cover, say, rural and urban aspects? Is there going to be just one pilot programme? How long will it last?
