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 2374 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
Okay, I will roll the questions together. A decision was made not to go for the preferred option that was put forward by the UK Government, which was a delay of three years, two years and one year for different categories. Instead, another option was taken: to go for three years for all three categories. What was the Scottish Government鈥檚 input to that decision?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
Therefore, with regard to the network operator鈥檚 business plan, how would, say, targets for onshore wind generation of 12GW and targets for solar generation impact on that? What will change on the ground, in practical terms?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
Good morning, and thank you for joining us.
The draft energy strategy discusses a range of targets for onshore wind. There is also the potential for a target or targets for solar to emerge from the energy strategy, perhaps at different scales, including embedded agricultural-scale solar. There is potential for marine energy targets as well. How do such targets influence your approach to market design and regulation? It would be useful to start with solar.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
That was a useful session today, which looked in some detail at the REACH model鈥攂oth registration and compliance鈥攁nd how the whole model is evolving and developing over time. It is important now, in the post-Brexit landscape, that committees are able to scrutinise how common frameworks are working and how stakeholders are interacting with the development of those regulations, so I felt that the session was useful.
I do not think it desirable or achievable for the Scottish Government to take an alternative route in relation to the matter, so I am content to accept the regulations that are before us. However, there is a need for on-going scrutiny, and I would welcome more information about the alternative registration model as it is developed over time.
The wider model, which the minister talked about, particularly in relation to the points that were made about divergence and the review of existing chemicals鈥攖hat we are all using at the moment, but which might impact on our health or environment鈥攏eeds watched as well. Questions exist about the pace of how that model is developing and how particular groups of chemicals are being reviewed continually, as our knowledge and understanding of their impact develops.
It would be good if those points could be reflected in a letter to the minister, as I feel that this is the start, not the end, of a conversation.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
Yes.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Deposit Return Scheme
Meeting date: 28 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
The map of return points is a very specific aspect of the scheme, but it is important, particularly for people in rural areas. When will we have certainty on what the map will look like? In response to Jackie Dunbar鈥檚 question, you spoke about the collection schedules, which will be hugely important to small rural stores that might not have much storage capacity. When will the map that shows where people can expect to be able to return their cans and bottles appear?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
No, I do not.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Deposit Return Scheme
Meeting date: 28 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
Maybe we could wind back a bit. There have been a lot of concerns among certain businesses. You have addressed some of those, but what do you see as the outstanding concerns?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 28 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
On the TNUOS review, is it accepted that the locational signals need to change? As far as I can see, the aim with locational signalling at the moment is to build as much generation as possible as close as possible to the theoretical centre of the GB energy market, which I think is Warwick. Last time I looked, building renewable energy close to Warwick was not going to produce as big an efficiency and load factor as building renewables in Scotland. We get more energy out of wind farms in Scotland than we would in the midlands of England. Is it recognised that locational signals need to change now through TNUOS, and that we need to be accessing and developing the resource where it is?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
It is good to see you in front of the committee, minister. I will turn to some of the concerns of environmental stakeholders and how you have addressed those in discussions within the common framework process and come to the decisions that you have, collectively. One of those concerns is around divergence during this delay period.
I understand that the EU is considering, and has taken the first steps towards, phasing out 47 groups of chemicals under its regime but that, under the UK REACH scheme, the UK is considering only three groups in that first phase of considering the environmental health impact of chemicals and how quickly they can be phased out. Do you see the potential for divergence, given the deadlines and the lack of pace of the UK scheme?
