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 MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs 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 810 contributions
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Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Minimum Core Obligations
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Kaukab Stewart
Dr Webster, you talked about the participatory process, and I would like to start off by discussing that a little bit further and drilling into it. It would be interesting to hear how you think the participatory process should be approached. I listened carefully to Professor Miller on the cross-cutting issues, including putting lived experience at the heart of all this. I come to you first, Professor Miller, and then I will bring in your colleagues.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Minimum Core Obligations
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Kaukab Stewart
The second item on our agenda is to take evidence on minimum core obligations with a focus on recommendations from the national task force for human rights leadership. I welcome to the meeting Professor Katie Boyle, chair of international human rights law, University of Stirling; Alan Miller, professor of practice in human rights law from the University of Strathclyde and also co-chair of the national task force for human rights leadership; and Dr Elaine Webster, reader in law, also from the University of Strathclyde. You are all very welcome.
We will ask you a few questions as we go on, but I first invite Professor Katie Boyle to make a few opening remarks.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Minimum Core Obligations
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Kaukab Stewart
Thank you. For my final question, I am going to go for Professor Miller, but if either of the other witnesses feels that they need to chip in, please indicate.
We have talked about non-legal routes but how might courts judge cases, given that we have difficulties in defining what the scope of minimum core obligations might be? Will courts have sufficient experience or skills to do that? What does the system need to provide for them to be able to do their job?
Do you want to respond, Professor Miller?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Minimum Core Obligations
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Kaukab Stewart
Thank you very much. It has been a very interesting and informative session, and it seems quite fitting that we have ended by talking about dignity. On behalf of my colleagues, I thank the panel for their contributions.
11:25 Meeting continued in private until 12:09.Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Minimum Core Obligations
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Kaukab Stewart
Yes, please continue.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Kaukab Stewart
Welcome to the 13th meeting in 2023 of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. There are no apologies.
Our first agenda item is to decide whether to consider evidence in private under agenda item 3. Do we agree to do that?
Members indicated agreement.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Minimum Core Obligations
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Kaukab Stewart
I think that Professor Boyle wanted to add something on your previous question.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Minimum Core Obligations
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Kaukab Stewart
Before we come to the end of our session, I want to pick up on a couple of points that have been mentioned already.
Remedy and justice will look different for different people. For some people, taking a court challenge is the route that they wish to explore, but it might be that a remedy would also require non-legal routes. I am keen to hear the panel’s thoughts on what kind of non-legal routes would be open to people who wish to challenge any breaches. I will start with Dr Webster.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Minimum Core Obligations
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Kaukab Stewart
So, it needs to be flexible, adaptable and responsive. I get that.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Minimum Core Obligations
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Kaukab Stewart
That is very helpful.
A lot of people, including people with lived experience, might not have a concept of what dignity is. If they have lived without dignity, their expectations—if they have any at all—are going to be different. How would the participatory process ensure that people with lived experience understand what dignity is and live with dignity? Who monitors that? Dr Webster, I think that that question is for you.
