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 825 contributions
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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instruments subject to Negative Procedure
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Bill Kidd
As noted under item 1, the regulations make exemptions from some official controls for certain animal and plant products being imported into Scotland from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The intended effect of regulation 2 is to exempt imports of certain animal-origin goods that are produced in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland from a pre-notification requirement to the border control authority.
In correspondence with the Scottish Government, the committee asked whether the absence of a reference in regulation 2 to the Republic of Ireland was intentional, given that related provisions refer to both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Scottish Government confirmed that that is a drafting error and that reference to the Republic of Ireland should have been included. The Scottish Government has committed to rectifying the error by making a further amendment in a Scottish statutory instrument that will be laid in the Scottish Parliament at the next available opportunity.
Does the committee wish to draw the instrument to the Parliament鈥檚 attention on reporting ground (i), as its drafting appears to be defective due to the error in regulation 2?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instruments subject to Negative Procedure
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Bill Kidd
Issues have also been raised on the following two instruments, which are made under the Local Government Finance Act 1992.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018: Instrument Procedure and Category
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Bill Kidd
The instrument makes exemptions from some official controls for certain animal and plant products being imported into Scotland from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The instrument has been laid under the negative procedure and is considered by the Scottish Government to be of low significance.
In correspondence with the Scottish Government, the committee asked whether the Government agreed that a choice of procedure was available and if so, for further explanation as to its choice of the negative procedure. The Scottish Government confirmed that there was a choice of procedure and that the negative procedure was considered appropriate, due to the limited impact of the amendments made by the instrument, which will apply for a limited time.
Is the committee content that the appropriate scrutiny procedure and categorisation have been applied to the instrument?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instrument subject to Made Affirmative Procedure
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Bill Kidd
Under agenda item 2, we are considering one instrument, on which no points have been raised.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instrument subject to Made Affirmative Procedure
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Bill Kidd
Is the committee content with the instrument?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instruments subject to Negative Procedure
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Bill Kidd
Under agenda item 3, we are considering four instruments. Issues have been raised on the following instrument.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instruments subject to Negative Procedure
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Bill Kidd
At the same time, does the committee wish to note the Scottish Government鈥檚 commitment to rectify the error by making a further amendment in an SSI that will be laid in the Scottish Parliament at the next available opportunity?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instruments subject to Negative Procedure
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Bill Kidd
There has been a failure to lay the instruments in accordance with the requirements of section 28(2) of the Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010. The 2010 act requires that instruments subject to the negative procedure be laid at least 28 days before they come into force, not counting recess periods of more than four days.
SSI 2022/124 amends the Council Tax (Exempt Dwellings) (Scotland) Order 1997 (SI 1997/728) so that council tax is not charged on dwellings that are exclusively used as the sole or main residence of those who have left Ukraine in connection with the Russian invasion and who have leave to remain or enter the United Kingdom or a right to abode in the UK.
SSI 2022/125 amends specified council tax regulations to provide that entitlement to the single person discount from council tax liability and the council tax reduction scheme is not affected by offering accommodation to certain persons coming to the UK from Ukraine in connection with the Russian invasion.
In correspondence with the Presiding Officer in relation to the two instruments, the Scottish Government explained that the nature of the homes for Ukraine scheme, which the UK Government launched on 14 March 2022, is such that it has the potential to increase the level of council tax liability of those who accommodate Ukrainian refugees and that that was not able to be fully assessed until the scheme was launched.
The Scottish Government also stated that, given the urgent nature of the need to change the law on this occasion and the short timeframe between the launching of the homes for Ukraine scheme and the beginning of the 2022-23 council tax year, it was not possible to meet the 28-day requirement.
Does the committee wish to draw SSI 2022/124 and SSI 2022/125 to the attention of the Parliament on reporting ground (j), for failure to comply with laying requirements?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instruments subject to Negative Procedure
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Bill Kidd
At the same time, is the committee content with the explanation that the Scottish Government has provided for the breaches of the laying requirements?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instruments subject to Negative Procedure
Meeting date: 19 April 2022
Bill Kidd
Is the committee content with the instrument?
Members indicated agreement.
