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.
Criathragan Hide all filters
Displaying 1100 contributions
|
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Liam Kerr
Kate Wallace, you have cued me up nicely by talking about the victim notification scheme. I recently asked a written question of the Government about the contact centre, the answer to which suggested that money for any developments would need to be found from existing budgets for the sector. In that context, do the changes to the bill that the cabinet secretary is proposing make any difference to the resources that your organisations might need in order to continue to carry out your work effectively? If so, do you get the sense that the cabinet secretary is seeking funding for that?
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Liam Kerr
Forgive me for interrupting, but, just to be absolutely clear, would it be Victim Support Scotland’s position that a case involving a charge of murder should be prosecuted in the sexual offences court and not be retained by the High Court?
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Liam Kerr
I understand. Kate Wallace, do you have a view on that?
Criminal Justice Committee
Scottish Biometrics Commissioner Annual Report 2023-24
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Liam Kerr
I have two questions. First, Dr Plastow, just last week, the Parliament had an interesting debate on artificial intelligence. What do you see as the opportunities and challenges from the increasing use of AI in your field of biometrics?
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Liam Kerr
Sticking with the investment that may or may not be coming down the line, in your response to the convener you talked, rightly, about the need for capital investment. The committee heard from Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority that, as they put it, an increased capital allocation of £83 million is required to allow them to deliver a basic rolling replacement programme—an estates master plan. If they do not get that—if that is not what they see in the budget—what does the cabinet secretary understand will have to not happen as a result?
09:45Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Liam Kerr
I remind the committee up front that I am a solicitor, although I have not done legal aid work for 20 years and I do not do criminal defence work.
Cabinet secretary, I understand and respect the answer that you gave to Pauline McNeill. However, the questions that she put to you are key. We know that there is a huge problem with the lack of numbers of solicitors who enter criminal defence, and evidence shows that that is due to unsustainable working conditions and—according to the dean of the Faculty of Advocates—inadequate remuneration. You will be very aware that Aamer Anwar & Co recently pulled out of doing legal aid work, because those solicitors cannot continue to fund it themselves. That has led many commentators to talk about an inability to access justice.
None of us—least of all you, I know—wants such a situation in Scotland, so give me a direct answer, please: will the Scottish Government do anything about legal aid in the forthcoming budget, and anything about the structural issues that underlie the situation in which we find ourselves?
10:45Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Liam Kerr
I might press you for one more question, convener.
I say with deep respect, cabinet secretary, that the previous money will no doubt have been very welcome. I have no doubt that the police will have been pleased to receive the sums that you talked about, both in capital and resource. However, this session is about looking forward and about what is coming up in the budget. The committee has heard that, if the police do not get what they need for resource, there will be a drop in officer numbers; if they do not get the £83 million capital allocation, there will be a problem with the rolling replacement programme.
Cabinet secretary, you accepted the seriousness to the police of not being able to deliver one or both of those, in the event that the budget does not deliver the money. What representations have you made to the finance secretary in relation to those specific asks from the police? Have you said to the finance secretary, “This is what we need to see, because the consequences of not seeing that are a disaster”?
Criminal Justice Committee
Scottish Biometrics Commissioner Annual Report 2023-24
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Liam Kerr
I understand. That is clear. Thank you.
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Liam Kerr
I am very grateful. My final question is about an interesting point that came up during our evidence sessions. John Logue of the Crown Office advised the committee that the ending of extensions to statutory time limits in solemn cases in November 2025 presents it with “significant risk”, as he put it. What is your response to that? What can the Government do to avoid that situation?
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Liam Kerr
Good morning. Police Scotland advised the committee that a flat-cash settlement, or a 3 per cent real-terms reduction in funding, would see officer numbers drop to as low as 15,100, or to below 15,000, respectively. It is important to be clear that Deputy Chief Constable Connors followed that up by saying that she did not believe
“that public safety would be compromised”
by such reductions, but that Police Scotland would need
“to prioritise and make more difficult choices around the threat, harm and risk.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 30 October 2024; c 9.]
Does the cabinet secretary accept the projections of those numbers in those financial scenarios? If so, what does the cabinet secretary understand that the police would have to do in terms of prioritisation and making those difficult choices?
