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 1696 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Claire Baker
Okay, thank you.
Michelle Primrose and Stuart Wallace, welcome to the committee. I will ask a general question. Do you think that there is a shared understanding of what a just transition is? There are a number of terms, and Hisashi Kuboyama talked about confusion for small businesses around whether we are aiming for carbon neutral, net zero or whatever. Is there a shared understanding in the Grangemouth area of what a just transition means, and of your responsibility in helping to deliver that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Claire Baker
Okay, thank you.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Claire Baker
I would like to ask another question about skills that probably follows on from that. Michelle Primrose set out Forth Ports鈥檚 activities, its work with the college and the support that is there. Liz McAreavey, you set out the plans in Edinburgh, which take a strategic, longer-term view of planning. Do you feel that that is happening for your sector and the businesses that you represent? Do you feel that you have access to the skills, and are you confident that your businesses can get access to what is needed?
Is this broader than just the energy sector? That is key to the changes that need to happen in Grangemouth. We talked about the interpretation of a just transition, and I think that Maggie Chapman tried to pull out that it is about more than just the energy sector. The Government is part of the wellbeing economy alliance as well. There are bigger issues about the whole region. The energy changes will have a bigger impact than just what happens with energy.
That is quite a broad question. I will come to you first, Liz, because you described a kind of strategic view in Edinburgh. Do you think that a strategic approach is being taken in Grangemouth, setting aside the work that Forth Ports is doing?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Claire Baker
The Government is focusing on Grangemouth first, which, in industry terms, is one of the highest-emitting areas in Scotland. You have informed us of the general position of all businesses across Scotland, because they are all trying to meet the target, but there is a particular focus on Grangemouth. What will the impact be on smaller businesses in that area? Do you feel that you are being involved enough in putting a plan together?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Claire Baker
Our next item of business is the first evidence session for our inquiry into a just transition for the Grangemouth area.
Industry is the second-highest carbon-emitting sector in Scotland after transport. There is currently a target for Scotland to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2045. The committee is interested in looking at how we can support, incentivise and de-risk that transition in the Grangemouth area first, to benefit companies and individuals. I thank everyone who responded to our call for evidence, which closed last week. All submissions will be considered during the inquiry.
In today鈥檚 session, we will focus on the challenges facing businesses. I welcome Hisashi Kuboyama, development manager for the west with the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland. He is joined by Liz McAreavey, who is chief executive of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, and, from Forth Ports Limited, Stuart Wallace, chief operating officer, and Michelle Primrose, group human resources manager. As always, it would be helpful if members and witnesses could keep their questions and answers as concise as possible.
I welcome our witnesses to the committee. I will go to Hisashi first, followed by Liz. I will focus my questions on both of you at the start.
The Government is producing a just transition plan for the Grangemouth area, and we expect to see the draft of that in the spring. What are the businesses that you represent looking for in the draft plan? Are you confident that it will reflect the challenges that are being faced by businesses? What is your understanding of where the focus is?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Claire Baker
I apologise, but I would like to make some progress and let other members in. If there is time at the end, we can come back to this line of questioning.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Claire Baker
Hisashi, you said at the beginning that there is no small business representative on the Grangemouth future industry board. Many of your small businesses will be a part of the supply chain. Others are businesses that are based in Grangemouth but that will still be impacted. On the skills agenda, do you feel there is recognition of the role that your members play and of the support that they need?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Claire Baker
Thank you. That brings us to the end of this evidence session. I thank the panel members for their contributions this morning. You have helped to set the scene for the inquiry that we are about to undertake and have raised some key issues for us to explore with other witnesses in the coming weeks. We will now move into private session.
11:12 Meeting continued in private until 11:37.Economy and Fair Work Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Claire Baker
Good morning and welcome to the fifth meeting in 2023 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. I have received apologies this morning from Jamie Halcro Johnston.
Our first item of business is to make a decision on taking items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Are members content to take those items in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Claire Baker
We took evidence from the Just Transition Commission, as well as the Climate Change Committee. Issues have been raised around private finance. The committee is interested in looking at how you de-risk the process. Stuart, I do not know whether you can comment on this. A key challenge is linking the considerable quantity of private finance that is available with the need to get the flow through to power all the proposals that are on the table and see what we need to do to reach net zero. The committee has an interest in the Scottish National Investment Bank as one of the players in that. Can you give an overview of whether more needs to be done to support private finance coming into Scotland?
