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 1097 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 9 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
Are there instances where somebody is held on remand and, by the time they go to court, they have already served their sentence?
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 9 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
Yes, absolutely.
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 9 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
I am just thinking about that. If someone ends up going into prison for a substantial time but they do not get any rehabilitation while they are there and they do not attend any courses to give them skills for when they come back into the community, is there any—
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 9 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
Have you made any progress on that?
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 9 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
I will turn back to the joint submission. There are references to the Scottish Government’s national strategy for community justice and the delivery plan as well as the recently published community justice performance framework. However, throughout the submission, there are references to funding. It also refers to
“significant implications for resourcing across JSW”
and
“a depleted and tired workforce.”
The submission goes on:
“The Scottish Government’s Vision for Justice, published in February 2022, includes a visual routemap to a transformed justice system by the end of the Parliamentary term in 2026.”
The submission then draws the committee’s attention to the one of the commitments in the vision:
“We will invest in a substantial expansion of community justice services, supporting diversion from prosecution, alternatives to remand and community sentencing.”
It seems as though we have a framework that everybody has done a lot of work on in order to tell us where we need to be, but it then also says:
“It is our view that the 23/24 spending priorities are not fully in line with the above commitment.”
Is change happening quickly enough? Do you have the resources or are all these frameworks just words on pieces of paper and is it the case that the frameworks will never be achieved if we do not start focusing on this?
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 9 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
The criminal justice social work—
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 2 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
Amendment 16 relates to the creation and publication of an advisory list. The bill, as drafted, indicates that both the advisory list and the barred list will be made public. My amendment seeks to ensure that the advisory list is not published. Although I appreciate that there is an argument for allowing the public to know who is on the barred list and on the advisory list, I do not believe that the advisory list should be made public.
I believe that it is important to take direction from England and Wales, which already have barred and advisory lists in place, and I note that it is the Scottish Government’s intention to follow the model that exists elsewhere in the UK. The procedure in England and Wales is to not publish the advisory list.
Amendment 17 concerns people and groups who should consult the barred list before employing someone, including the Scottish Police Authority and the Police Service of Scotland. Where the information shared in the barred list is more crucial to those bodies, the amendment would ensure that they consider it. The bill as introduced leaves it to Scottish ministers, through secondary legislation, to decide who must consult the lists. I believe that it would be prudent to have a short list of people and groups who must consult the information on the barred list, where that would be most relevant to them.
Amendment 18 would add a further requirement to the advisory and barred lists. It would introduce a requirement on Scottish ministers to give notice to
“a person who is to be entered in or removed from, the advisory list or the barred list.”
That would ensure that people who are placed on those lists are kept informed about that.
Amendment 19 would add further points about the advisory and barred lists. It would allow people to ask for
“a review of the decision to enter them in to the advisory list or the barred list.”
The person would also be required to engage with the disciplinary process to be able to ask for a review. It is important that people who have actively participated in disciplinary proceedings are given the right to review the conclusion.
The rest of the amendments in the group are consequential. I will mention them again, but I am pleased that the cabinet secretary has indicated that the Government will support amendments 18, 20 and 22 to 24, and that it will support amendment 17 if amendment 21 is not moved. I will not move amendment 21 and I look forward to the cabinet secretary’s comments.
I move amendment 16.
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 2 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
Yes.
Amendment 12 agreed to.
Amendments 13 and 51 not moved.
Amendment 14 moved—[Sharon Dowey]—and agreed to.
Amendments 52 and 53 not moved.
Section 6, as amended, agreed to.
After section 6
Amendments 54 to 56, 15 and 58 not moved.
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 2 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
Amendment 39 concerns reviews that the commissioner can undertake into a practice or policy. It will ensure that, before commencing such a review, the commissioner has to consult HMICS. The intention of the amendment is to avoid the duplication of work and to ensure that bodies work co-operatively to streamline the complaints process.
Amendment 40 adds to amendment 39. It would require the commissioner to assist HMICS with any work that is related to such a review. The intention of the amendment is, again, to avoid duplication of work and ensure that bodies work co-operatively to streamline the complaints process. That is a role that sits with HMICS. The cabinet secretary has indicated that she will support amendment 39. I ask her to consider working on amendment 40 to bring it back at stage 3. I look forward to her comments.
I move amendment 39.
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 2 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
I have no other comments to make. I press amendment 33.
Amendment 33 agreed to.
Amendment 63 not moved.
Amendments 34 and 35 moved—[Angela Constance]—and agreed to.
Section 11, as amended, agreed to.
Section 12—Call-in of relevant complaints
Amendments 36 and 64 not moved.
Amendments 37 and 38 moved—[Angela Constance]—and agreed to.
Section 12, as amended, agreed to.
Sections 13 and 14 agreed to.
Section 15—Review of, and recommendations about, practices and policies of the police
11:45