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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 2221 contributions
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2022
Stuart McMillan
As we have already touched on, the bill sets the date by which retained EU law will be automatically removed from the statute book—Dr Tucker just spoke about the cliff edge. What is your understanding of the number of pieces of legislation that will potentially be affected? Do you have any further comment to make on that? We and other committees have heard various figures bandied about—perhaps 2,400 pieces of legislation, potentially another 1,400 and then, potentially, others. We have also picked up on a figure of 5,000 that was used at one point. Do you have any clarity on how many pieces of legislation should be included in the figure?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2022
Stuart McMillan
Does Morag Ross want to come in?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2022
Stuart McMillan
Sir Jonathan Jones, do you want to come in?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2022
Stuart McMillan
To come on to that particular point, and others that were raised earlier, irrespective of what the figure for pieces of legislation might be, we know that it will be in the thousands. Does the Parliaments’ capacity to scrutinise relate to officials’ ability to engage with each piece of law before a decision is taken on whether it should be extended? That question is probably more for Sir Jonathan Jones, given his experience.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2022
Stuart McMillan
My final question is on the negative procedure, which has been touched on. Regulations to preserve REUL are subject to the negative procedure whether they are made by the UK Parliament or the Scottish Parliament. Is the negative procedure appropriate for regulations that preserve REUL?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2022
Stuart McMillan
Jonathan Jones or Dr Tucker, do either of you have a view on that?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2022
Stuart McMillan
Dr Tucker wants to come in.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2022
Stuart McMillan
You have just touched on our next area of discussion, which is about consultation with and consent by the Scottish ministers and the Scottish Parliament. That has come up at meetings of the lead committee, but for quite some time it has also regularly come up as an area of concern or frustration for Scotland as regards the UK Parliament. The bill allows the UK ministers to use the power to preserve REUL in devolved areas without the consent of, or without consulting, the Scottish ministers or the Scottish Parliament. Do the witnesses have any comments about what that will mean for dialogue and respecting devolution?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2022
Stuart McMillan
Welcome to the 33rd meeting of 2022 of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. We have received apologies from Jeremy Balfour. I remind everyone to switch their mobile phones to silent.
Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Does the committee agree to take items 5 and 6 in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2022
Stuart McMillan
Given the comments that he has already made, the next question is probably more for Dr Tucker, but the other two witnesses are welcome to respond, too.
Could you give us your reflections on the extent to which Parliament, as opposed to ministers, will be able to influence what the statute book will look like as a result of the bill?