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 888 contributions
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Fulton MacGregor
Good morning. I had a few questions about accountability, but a lot of the issues have been covered, so I will ask a question on the back of what Karen Adam asked about. It involves an area that you always highlight, minister, and is a difficult one from the public’s point of view.
Generally, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament have a range of policies with human rights at their core. However, when the policies are implemented by local government or other public sector bodies, the human rights element does not always seem to be present on the ground. Could you comment on that? In your response to Karen Adam, you talked about how difficult it is to follow the money to see whether it is being implemented in that way. Is there something that we can do to ensure that all bodies are working together to implement policies in a way that has human rights at their core?
Last week, I raised an issue concerning a mobility hub in my constituency. I was not looking for an intervention on that issue, but I can inform the committee that, following that discussion—about an hour and a half after the end of the meeting—I received an email advising me that the campaign to save the service had been successful. I do not know whether someone somewhere was watching the committee meeting, but I thought that the committee might be interested in what happened, and I want to put on the record my thanks to the committee for allowing me to raise the issue, as it is plausible that that discussion played a part in saving the service.
My question is not about the mobility hub, which has now been saved; it is more about the general idea of how the Parliament’s good human rights policies can be implemented across the board. I know that there are difficulties with funding and so on.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Fulton MacGregor
I appreciate that, but the Government has said that the particular bills that I have mentioned are an attempt to help with the pressures in the system. However, you are right: they will initially mean more training and learning about them.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Fulton MacGregor
It is really good to hear that. I know that you have said that you are worried about the impact on all the services and how the collaboration can work. On possible ways forward, do you think that any upcoming legislative changes can help? Obviously, the committee is looking at the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill, and a criminal law reform bill is coming up. I know that the police will feed into them, as the police always do. Have you had any thoughts about how such reforms could help in these challenging financial times, or is that thinking a bit of a way off, until the bills come before you?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Fulton MacGregor
I think that the sirens that we just heard might have been for the benefit of the committee.
I had a few questions, but some of them have been covered, and I asked a supplementary question earlier. I had a question on the Audit Scotland report and the 14 stations with serious structural safety issues, but colleagues have covered that, so in the interests of time I will move on.
The only question that I have is one about joined-up working that you might have heard me ask the police service in the previous evidence session. If there is a flat cash settlement for all the services—you are all integrated and you all work together—what are your thoughts and planning around how that would pan out?
The police said earlier that, a lot of the time, when other services, including you, and other justice partners struggle, the police are left to pick things up in areas where they would not normally do so. Is that how you see it going? Would it be the police picking things up from you, or would you be picking things up from the police in some areas? Do have any general thoughts on that?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Fulton MacGregor
Good morning. I have been a member of this committee and its predecessor for six years, along with Rona Mackay—I think that we are the only two members who are in that position—and I have to say that this budget scrutiny is the starkest that I have heard. During previous sessions, colleagues of Jamie Greene and Russell Findlay would actually have had to ask questions to try and get you to say what you have said today.
All credit to the police, you have always come to the committee and said that you can manage the issues, but today, for me, it sounds totally different, and I think we need to sit up and take note of that because—like James Gray said—you would not come here and scaremonger, and we know that because of the previous meetings. That is really important. None of us can be in any doubt about the serious pressures that you have put to us. I guess that you expect the committee, including the four of us who are Government back benchers, to take that back to the Government. We will do that.
On the issue that Rona Mackay raised, by the same token—this is for the record rather than a question, as I know that you would not want to be involved in the politics—I hope that our Conservative colleagues will use their influence in the position that they are in to ensure that the new Prime Minister does not take a sledgehammer to public services and put the Scottish Government in that position, too.
As I said, the committee’s job is to scrutinise the Scottish Government—there is no getting away from that—but I wanted to put on the record what I have heard today, because it has been very stark and different from what has been said in previous years.
I want to ask about the interaction with other services, which David Page has already touched on. We will hear from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in a wee bit, and I guess that it will have a similar thing to say. There is a flat cash settlement for other key justice sector organisations, including the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the courts. Have you had any thoughts about how that will impact on you? Obviously, you all work together. What sorts of impacts do you see coming down the line if the cuts to those other services go ahead as well? How will it all work?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Fulton MacGregor
Thanks very much. I know that some of that was referred to earlier as well. Thanks, convener, for allowing me to ask that extra question.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Fulton MacGregor
Yes, it is on that point. I have other questions to ask later, but one of my questions follows on directly from the points that Rona Mackay has raised, so thank you for allowing me to come in, convener.
Ross Haggart talked about the on-call crew. In your written submission and earlier, you said that a consideration of how stations are crewed is a possibility. Even before the current situation, I had queries about the issue and I have done a wee bit of work on the crewing situation at the Coatbridge fire station.
It sounds like the on-call service is really helpful to the fire service. What difficulties does that model bring? What risks are associated with it? I have heard from those involved that there are risks. Is it a less responsive service? Is there a greater risk that something will go wrong when using that service?
12:00Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Fulton MacGregor
Thank you very much for that. I will save my other questions for later on.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Fulton MacGregor
So it is a work in progress. Thanks very much for that. I have one other quick supplementary question, about the impact of climate change. It came to me as we have been speaking through the course of the committee meeting.
12:30I am asking about it because, throughout the meeting, I have been getting a sun symbol at the bottom of my tablet screen saying that it is 16°C and, at certain points today, it has said that it is a record temperature for this date. We are in nearly November, and it is 16°C—it has just turned red the now, so the app must be listening to me.
Today may not be the best example, but the summer that we had was scorching. You must have been really busy at that point. Is the impact of climate change filtering into your budget requests to the Scottish Government?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Fulton MacGregor
I welcome all that. The blue-light collaboration, which you and the police have spoken about, is a fantastic piece of work and should be happening.
It might be that you are not able to look at this, but in relation to budget scrutiny, is part of your analysis and assessment looking at how other services might be cut, or do you have to leave that to the side and not concentrate on it, in case the police get an increase or whatever? Do you sit and say, “The police might be getting cut, and this is how it will impact us”?