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 ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ 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 1071 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Written Authority: Completion of Vessel 802
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Neil Gray
No.
Public Audit Committee
Written Authority: Completion of Vessel 802
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Neil Gray
I will bring in Colin Cook to comment on the particulars of that figure. The future of the yard will depend on ensuring that it is productive and competitive. Some of that work will require difficult decisions to be made about the future nature of the yard, including the capital investment that will be required to bring it up to competitive standard. A request has come in from the chief executive for work that he believes is required to bring it up to standard, and we must go through a rigorous process of ensuring that we are in line with subsidy control measures to take that decision—something that both the convener and I mentioned during the debate.
I bring in Mr Cook to provide further detail on the figure of £120,000.
Public Audit Committee
Written Authority: Completion of Vessel 802
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Neil Gray
There is undoubtedly a requirement to do more. The request that I mentioned earlier has come in. From a subsidy control perspective, we have to assess whether that work would be forthcoming if the yard was in private ownership, and whether, by our providing it, we would be providing a subsidy or a competitive advantage to the yard that it would not have in the private sector.
That work is on-going, but, undoubtedly, work is required to ensure that the yard is competitive going forward. That is where some of the difficult decision making will be over the coming months in terms of ensuring that the yard is in as fit a position as possible to ensure a good future.
Public Audit Committee
Written Authority: Completion of Vessel 802
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Neil Gray
In relation to what we are discussing today, I took a decision on 14 May and made a statement in Parliament on 16 May—the next parliamentary sitting day. I hope that that gives some comfort to Mr Coffey and his colleagues that I am committed to providing information as quickly as possible to ensure that there can be public scrutiny and that this committee can discharge its duties as effectively as possible. We will seek to put information into the public domain as quickly as we can.
Public Audit Committee
Written Authority: Completion of Vessel 802
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Neil Gray
I do not need to respond to you in writing, then. [Laughter.] Ms Hall has assisted me by saying that it will take £70 million to complete 802.
Public Audit Committee
Written Authority: Completion of Vessel 802
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Neil Gray
No—and I have said why, convener. I hope that it would be understood that, by releasing the report, we would be putting the yard at a competitive disadvantage. Yards—
Public Audit Committee
Written Authority: Completion of Vessel 802
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Neil Gray
To be clear—I hope that I am not putting words in Mr Irwin’s mouth—I do not think that that was a decision that was requested because there was advice against proceeding in that direction from colleagues in the Government. The decision was made because Mr Irwin could not be satisfied, based on the economic uncertainty, inflation, the other elements of information that were available and the direct cost comparison between completing and procuring elsewhere, on that narrow value-for-money element.
Mr Irwin was satisfied on the other two elements—on the appropriateness of our proceeding—and I think that that has been set out to the committee. However, no, we are not able to release the report, as I have said. We hold very dear the future of the yard, and we want to ensure that that is protected, as I am sure that you understand, convener.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scottish Government Policy Priorities (Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy)
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Neil Gray
It is a constant challenge. I have the responsibility of ensuring that I drive a fair work agenda across Government. We are already doing well. We have the highest number of employees being paid the real living wage anywhere in the UK, and the lowest number of employees being paid below the real living wage anywhere in the UK. We also have incredibly strong labour market statistics that give opportunity but also pose a challenge. A tight labour market gives us opportunities to discuss with employers the importance of advancing the fair work agenda to reduce workplace attrition and ensure the continued support of employees.
We will continue to progress that alongside the work that we do with the Fair Work Convention and the Scottish Trades Union Congress. I believe that I am due to meet Roz Foyer soon. I was with her at the anti-poverty summit that the First Minister hosted last week and we had a very good conversation off the back of that.
We will continue to do all that we can to ensure that fair work drives success, wellbeing and prosperity for individuals and businesses, and to ensure that employers continue to understand the importance of demonstrating fair work, not just because it is the right thing to do from a social perspective but because it drives economic benefit to their organisation.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scottish Government Policy Priorities (Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy)
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Neil Gray
As a result of the Bute house agreement, conditionality will be attached from, I believe, 1 July, when public sector procurement will have fair work principles attached to it. That is an important first step, but we will keep the effectiveness of that conditionality under review and look at whether there will be opportunities to go further. However, we will need to ensure that there is time, from the start of that process on 1 July, to monitor its effectiveness so that we can see whether there are opportunities to reform it in any way.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scottish Government Policy Priorities (Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy)
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Neil Gray
I look forward to listening to that.
