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 1067 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Professional Qualifications Bill
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Ivan McKee
Yes, I think so. From our perspective, the main issue is the impingement on devolved responsibilities. Issues have been raised by regulators, who also have concerns, but the main issue for us is the devolved aspects. We recognise the asks from the regulators and we are supportive of many of them. We hope that the UK Government will also move forward on those asks, with appropriate amendments.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Professional Qualifications Bill
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Ivan McKee
There is regular on-going engagement at official level. I have spoken with and written to Gerry Grimstone, the relevant UK Government minister about the issue. We are hopeful there will be movement. There is regular discussion about the issue, as there is on many other areas.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Professional Qualifications Bill
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Ivan McKee
I would like to think so, but it will come down to the UK Government reflecting on the situation. There have been issues of this kind, with other bills in which the UK Government has sought to impinge on devolved matters, that have not concluded in the way we would have liked. However, in this case, I am hopeful that the UK Government will recognise the importance of not impinging on devolved areas and will amend the bill accordingly.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Professional Qualifications Bill
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Ivan McKee
They will be having their own separate discussions, but our officials are also engaging regularly with the regulators to understand their concerns about the professional issues that I have mentioned and how the bill impinges on devolved matters.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Professional Qualifications Bill
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Ivan McKee
I will follow up on that. You are right, convener, that, all else being equal, we are keen to remove barriers to trade where they exist.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Professional Qualifications Bill
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Ivan McKee
They will speak for themselves, but I understand that their concerns are largely about the potential downgrading of standards in pursuit of international trade deals鈥攃learly, that is something to be concerned about鈥攁nd the UK Government being in a position to make changes that the regulators are not comfortable with.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Professional Qualifications Bill
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Ivan McKee
The 2020 act gives the UK Government the ability to impinge on devolved areas, which is something that we are deeply unhappy about. As we know, power devolved is power retained, so the UK Government can effectively do as it wishes in that regard. The internal market legislation allows the UK Government to do that, but that does not mean that that is a wise thing to do, or that it is in the interests of Scotland for it to do so.
