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 1198 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Languages Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Liam Kerr
I will go back to Bill Kidd’s first question. Cabinet secretary, do you recognise the risk that some witnesses have suggested to the committee that, in talking about and defining Scots, the bill will standardise out what are very different dialects, such as Doric and Norn?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Languages Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Liam Kerr
That is quite a key point—it is what I am asking about. With respect, I am not asking about what is there already. Given that new duties are apparently being created, I am asking what that means, so that the committee can produce a report. What does the bill actually mean and, therefore, from there, what will the extra cost be to our cash-strapped local authorities? With great respect, Douglas Ansdell, I think that what I am hearing is that you—the bill team and the cabinet secretary—are not in a position to give the committee an answer to those very important questions. Is that a fair reflection?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Languages Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Liam Kerr
To stick with the question of Scots, you would like children to be exposed to that. Those were your words. Where will the teaching staff come from in a context of falling teacher numbers in many subjects and ever-smaller numbers of specialists in most subjects? Will those teachers come from an existing pool or will there be new ones and what is the projected cost of training them?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Languages Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Liam Kerr
Good morning, cabinet secretary. In response to Ross Greer, you talked about the importance of outcomes. Comunn na GĂ idhlig has suggested that a powerful and meaningful interim target ought to be 90 per cent of children who enter GME being functionally fluent when they leave secondary school. What is your view of that? Should the concept of functional fluency apply to Scots, too? If so, how is functional fluency assessed if Scots is a category incorporating numerous significantly different dialects?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Languages Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Liam Kerr
It was a long time ago.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Languages Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Liam Kerr
Do you mean for both Scots and Gaelic?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Languages Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Liam Kerr
With respect, in what way is that meaningful for the economy? Will you quantify that? You have a reputation for being all over the economy piece, so you must have given some thought to the economic output of taking those measures.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Languages Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Liam Kerr
I will just reflect on that briefly, to make sure that I have understood. The idea is that, with regard to Scots, existing teachers will be able to avail themselves of the Open University training and be able to teach in Scots. When they go back to their school, will they teach in English, as they have always done, or, now that they are trained in Scots, will they be expected to teach in Scots?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Languages Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 May 2024
Liam Kerr
James Wylie, I would like to stay on the point that my friend Michelle Thomson has raised. Your submission raises concerns that the bill uses the concept of what you call “Standardised Scots”, as seen in the translation of the bill, as opposed to recognising variants such as Orkney Norn. Can you develop that concern to help the committee understand it? Particularly, what does educating in Scots mean in practice for the likes of Norn or, indeed, Doric?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Languages Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 May 2024
Liam Kerr
My final question picks up on something that Michelle Thomson explored earlier. You mentioned in your submission that there is a risk that the creation of a standardised Scots will come at the expense of Orkney Norn language and culture, and I presume that countering that will require resource and will involve cost. You also mentioned that the additional costs and staffing pressures have not been considered.
From looking into the process, do you have any idea what the financial consequences of the bill as drafted would be for Orkney Islands Council? In any event, do you think that Orkney Islands Council—given all the support that you have already put towards Norn—is in any position to take on extra costs to protect Norn that might arise from the bill?
