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 ˿ and committees will automatically update to show only the ˿ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ˿ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ˿ 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 613 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Benefit Take-up Strategy
Meeting date: 11 November 2021
Emma Roddick
You have acknowledged in the strategy that stigma plays a big part in the low take-up of benefits. What is the Government doing to tackle that stigma?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Homelessness and Rough Sleeping (Session 6 Priorities)
Meeting date: 4 November 2021
Emma Roddick
Lorraine McGrath, to what extent would a negative initial response turn off those groups from interacting with housing services in the future?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Homelessness and Rough Sleeping (Session 6 Priorities)
Meeting date: 4 November 2021
Emma Roddick
Dr Watts, I note that, in your written submission, you say that you favour raising housing allowance. When housing allowance is raised, how much of the benefit to people who struggle to afford housing is offset by private landlords raising rents in response?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Homelessness and Rough Sleeping (Session 6 Priorities)
Meeting date: 4 November 2021
Emma Roddick
My question is for Lorraine McGrath, but given Shelter’s focus on prevention in its contribution, Gordon MacRae might want to come in. Certain groups are more at risk of homelessness. How much of that stems from the accessibility of local authority housing and how much of it stems from the rigidity of application processes? What changes could be made to address those aspects?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Homelessness and Rough Sleeping (Session 6 Priorities)
Meeting date: 4 November 2021
Emma Roddick
Gordon MacRae, to what extent are “No DSS” listings affecting the ability of homeless people to find accommodation? What can be done to address that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Emma Roddick
The difference between the cost of PIP and the cost of ADP is quite significant. Do you expect that, if social security were to be devolved in its entirety, the cost of delivering the benefits would be less?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Emma Roddick
My next question is for Satwat Rehman and Eilidh Dickson. Much of the evidence that we have received so far has had a focus on the importance of lived experience. In considering child poverty, is it enough to speak to the parents or do we need to hear from kids who are currently in poverty, or folk who were kids who grew up in poverty?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Emma Roddick
My first question is for Crisis. The committee has had a lot of discussions about poverty proofing. What has the lack of poverty proofing led to historically? Can you see from legislation so far in the current and previous sessions of Parliament what impact the input from people with lived experience is having on preventing homelessness?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Carer’s Allowance Supplement (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Emma Roddick
I am hopeful that we will give carers the certainty that this winter they will get an extra payment that is needed. We have to recognise that Scotland will now be the only country in the UK where, thanks to this supplement, carers allowance is no longer the lowest working-age benefit.
Mr Balfour was right when he said earlier that these are political decisions. He could always encourage his colleagues in the UK Government to increase carers allowance to the level of jobseekers allowance and allow this supplement to go further.
The context here is important, because we are discussing an increase to a top-up to a benefit that is the lowest of any UK working-age benefit. It is a short-term intervention that gets extra cash into carers’ pockets this Christmas, because their UK carers allowance payments are woefully inadequate. Over the past few months, witnesses have told us about, among other things, the huge issues around eligibility for carers allowance and, as we have heard, the supplement will benefit an estimated one in 10 carers, which is nowhere near good enough. The Government, therefore, needs appropriate time to consult carers, those whom they care for and carers organisations to bring in a new carers assistance that will reach as many people as possible, instead of members clumsily lodging an amendment that seeks to increase a top-up to a payment that we know is inadequate.
Given that money is not endless, it is right that we accept this extra payment as something positive that aims to top up a flawed system. Nobody in this room will disagree that carers deserve more, but we have to do this right.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Carer’s Allowance Supplement (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Emma Roddick
I think that we can all agree that this extra winter payment is needed and deserved this year, particularly in light of the work that carers do and the extra burdens that have been created for them during the pandemic. I am not sure that it is right to decide now to uplift the supplement by the same amount next year, given that what we have learned over the past two years is that we cannot know what next winter is going to look like. I am reassured that the bill gives ministers the power to make further increases as part of the budget process.
