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 łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of łÉČËżěĘÖ 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 2435 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
You said earlier that there is now effectively a doorstep-ready DRS in Scotland. In your discussions with Rebecca Pow and other ministers, will you be presenting it as a scheme that has effectively been designed by the industry itself?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
There is a view that we can meet recycling targets for glass just by investing in kerbside collections. What is your response to that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
Thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
I turn to the environmental impact of the exclusion of glass from the scheme and of the delay. Will you please outline what those are, minister?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
Okay. It would be useful to get a sense of what the reaction has been from businesses that would benefit from those amendments and whether there are calls for others to be made, beyond the larger issues of glass.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
I welcome the SSI, which was lodged some time ago. It represents the fact that the minister and her officials have, over time, listened to business and actively engaged with the sector. As a result, business has helped shape the scheme, and we are probably as close as we can be to a consensus on what a model DRS scheme for Scotland—and, potentially, the rest of the UK—could look like.
Inevitably, there will always be sectors, particularly those that favour glass as well as the glass industry itself, that will want glass to be excluded from any scheme and which will try to seek a commercial advantage over other businesses by doing so. However, this scheme has captured the consensus and has been shaped by business; it can operate in Scotland and could be adopted across the rest of the UK.
The Government has worked long enough on this. In fact, there has been so much consultation and engagement with business that we now have a model that should set the direction for the rest of the UK with regard to interoperability. I am proud of where we as a Parliament have got to with the scheme and proud of what the Government has achieved. We will be ready to go with the scheme as soon as we are able to.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
Thank you.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
Building on that, I am interested in where creative community hubs sit within your strategies and organisation and how you will consider funding them through the new funding model that you are developing.
Last week, we were quite struck by some of the work that has been happening across Edinburgh to, in effect, reset the relationship between creative community hubs and agencies. In particular, there is the report “Working Better Together”. There is perhaps a sense that many community hubs feel that cultural opportunities are being offered to them but they are not being developed from the ground up—that a community development approach is not happening right now.
There has been other evidence—for example, from the University of Stirling, looking at Creative Stirling—about how creative hubs pivoted during Covid to take a much more inclusive and community development approach. Does that fit the funds that you have, or does it start to stray into other, siloed, boxes such as regeneration? How are you incorporating something that is much more holistic and about place making into your central funding, which is about culture but is also about much more than that?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
Do you think that there might be a tension when large cultural organisations and festivals, such as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, want to invest in communities but their investment can feel very top-down? For example, they might say, “Here are 60 tickets for something that we are producing.” One view that was quoted from the Edinburgh creative hubs is:
“If you want the margins to engage, then invest in the margins. It’s quite straightforward.”
Is the balance right? Is culture something that is being offered to people—I would not quite say “being done to people”—or can it emerge from communities? Is that partnership right at the moment? The view that we have heard is that sometimes it is not, and culture is seen as a type of philanthropy—“Would you like to come and see our show?” instead of, “What are you creating in your community and how can we invest in and develop that?”
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Mark Ruskell
If you recognise that, what role can Creative Scotland play in helping to reset, or at least question, the relationship in that partnership and whether it is working in certain areas?
