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 成人快手 and committees will automatically update to show only the 成人快手 and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of 成人快手 and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of 成人快手 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 461 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Carol Mochan
Similarly, my point is that it is very disappointing that we do not have a timeframe. There is a growing body of evidence that that is an important policy to progress. Commitments have been made on school meals but nothing has come forward. We should send a strongly worded letter to the minister asking that the Government please sets out an exact timeframe for the measure.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Carol Mochan
Was that the initial contact with the police?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Carol Mochan
You talked about changes in the guidance. Do you know whether schools still give out disposable bottles or whether the provision is more sustainable now?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Carol Mochan
I am broadly supportive of the petition, and I have been approached by other members of the Parliament to suggest that we could seek further information on what happens within the school education system and how we could support proper education around what is often a sensitive issue for young people at school, particularly for young women. I would be keen to see whether we could get together some of the information and see how the issue is taken up in the school curriculum.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Carol Mochan
No, take your time.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Carol Mochan
I am very supportive of the comments that have been made. I would particularly support getting some feedback from organisations such as Scottish Women鈥檚 Aid, because that might give some weight to the fact that, as you say, convener, it does not seem sensible to wait for four years to implement such urgent legislation.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Interests
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Carol Mochan
It is good to join the committee. I will pass on your best wishes to Paul. I have nothing to declare at this time.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Carol Mochan
I am interested in whether the witnesses have specific recommendations from the groups to which they have spoken. Are there two or three specific points that everybody agrees would be helpful?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Carol Mochan
I am very supportive of that point. A lot of constituents who contact us on this issue are very distressed. There is a lack of urgency in providing that information, which might give people direction and comfort. It is important that we are strong on the fact that we have had delay in this area for far too long.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Carol Mochan
I have one last question about dates and times. Do you have any anticipated dates for when subordinate legislation under that bill might come to us? Will there be peak times when there will be a high level of scrutiny?
