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 923 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 March 2022
Katy Clark
Thank you for that. I put the same question to David MacKenzie. Could you outline your views on the actual extent of the misuse of fireworks and on whether the proposed legislation is proportionate from your perspective?
Criminal Justice Committee
Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 March 2022
Katy Clark
How would you quantify the current extent of the misuse of fireworks? How much of a problem is it?
Criminal Justice Committee
Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 March 2022
Katy Clark
I have a question for Mr Hamilton, who has already commented on the fee and has rightly pointed out that fireworks are not being completely banned.
Does you agree that the fee—and the level of the fee—could be seen as pricing the majority of firework users out of using and enjoying fireworks responsibly?
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 16 March 2022
Katy Clark
I associate myself with the procedure points that have been made. In relation to the substantive issues, we took evidence on political oversight from the cabinet secretary, and it is important that we put on record that we expect a high level of oversight both by ministers and by the Scottish Prison Service. Obviously, the instrument has given, and is giving, governors significant powers, and it is important that those powers are used with consistency and that they are proportionate and necessary. It would be helpful if the committee could put on record the importance of political oversight—particularly the role of politicians in ensuring that the decisions that they make are consistent and proportionate. I include the committee in that. Picking up on the point that Collette Stevenson made, I suggest that the committee should be kept regularly advised of the decisions that are taken so that we, too, are able to give that political oversight.
Criminal Justice Committee
Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 March 2022
Katy Clark
Perhaps it is about the kind of groups that are being asked to pay the fee.
Criminal Justice Committee
Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 March 2022
Katy Clark
The legitimate and responsible use of fireworks is allowed, so do the other witnesses have comments to make about the level of the fee and ensuring that genuine collective organisations that want to organise events are not priced out of doing so?
Criminal Justice Committee
Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 March 2022
Katy Clark
I understand. Thank you.
Criminal Justice Committee
Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 March 2022
Katy Clark
The intention behind the licensing scheme is to reduce the inconsiderate use and misuse of fireworks. Have you had the opportunity to look at the proposed licensing scheme? Is it, as presented, likely to achieve its outcome? Are you concerned that individuals who are intent on misusing fireworks will just ignore the scheme and carry on?
Perhaps Lorraine Gillies would like to respond first.
Criminal Justice Committee
Risk Assessment in the Justice System
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Katy Clark
You have not actually asked professionals to do that yet.
Criminal Justice Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Katy Clark
The bill suggests the use of virtual trials as a default. From what you have said and from the information that we have been able to gather, it sounds as though, up to now, only a very small number of cases have gone ahead. It is therefore difficult to take a view, given that those cases might be the ones that are most suitable for virtual trials and everybody is in agreement.
We are having to grapple with the issue of why the holding of a virtual trial should be the default even when that is not agreed to by all parties, which is my understanding of how the provisions in the bill would work. I presume that, at the end of the day, it would be the sheriff who would decide whether it was appropriate for a case to be virtual. That is quite a massive shift.
The purpose of the bill as it has been presented to us, and the reason that we have been given for why it is going through in a far more speedy process than would normally be the case in the Parliament, is to continue practices that have been taking place during the Covid pandemic. However, the evidence that we are getting is that, in reality, virtual trials have not been taking place in significant numbers, and they have not been the default. There have been only a small number of them. What evidence do we have that the model that is proposed in the bill has been tested?
