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 1492 contributions
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Jamie Greene
Perhaps this is a question for Police Scotland and the Crown Office. I do not want to get into specifics, because that would be unfair on individuals and their families. Have any patterns emerged? For example, is there a pattern of people having identified as being in a position of severe trauma, such as having been suspended from an investigation by the force, being signed off from work because of physical or mental ill-health, or having recently experienced a trauma in the workplace? Have patterns emerged that point to specific factors being triggers that could be spotted and addressed?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Jamie Greene
Good morning. I appreciate that this will be a difficult subject for people who are watching the meeting.
Earlier, Ms McQueen commented that we cannot learn and move forward unless there is openness, honesty and transparency about what has happened thus far. I struggle with the assumption that is made about serving officers who have, tragically, taken their own lives in the past few years: no link has ever been identified, publicly or openly, between what they did for a living and what happened to them, which I find incredible.
The committee has met, in private, former and serving officers who have been frank and honest with us about the fact that they had either tried to take their own lives or had thought about it quite considerably, as a direct result of circumstances that they found themselves in, in being serving police officers. Their situation was not caused by relationship or money problems, or by historical mental health issues; rather, it was directly related to circumstances in which those individuals had found themselves. We know that to be true, as do the officers’ families. Why is no one willing to admit that that is the case? There is surely a link.
I will not pick a specific witness to respond to that, but if any of you wishes to answer, please do so.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Jamie Greene
I apologise.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Jamie Greene
That is helpful.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Jamie Greene
I wish Collette Stevenson the very best. I am very disappointed that I will not be sitting next to John Swinney on committee for the next two and a half years. Members might be aware that I will no longer be sitting on the Criminal Justice Committee after this committee session closes. By the way, I forewarn you that, if an alarm goes off in the building, it is entirely unrelated to what I am about to say. [Laughter.]
I thank the convener, deputy convener, colleagues, the clerking team, SPICe and everyone who has supported the Criminal Justice Committee over the past two and a bit years for their patience and, on occasion, forbearance, as well as for their support to me personally as I have worked on the committee.
I have worked on a number of committees since I got elected and on a number of bills, and I have to say that this is one of the best functioning, most cohesive, constructive and positive environments to work in. The committees in this Parliament do a tremendous job. It not said often enough how important committee work is in our unicameral existence, and I have always tried to approach that with a constructive and positive outlook, which I hope has been welcomed by members.
I also thank my colleague Russell Findlay, who will do a great job in his work on the Criminal Justice Committee as you approach a very challenging legislative environment over the next two years. I know from the committee’s work programme that you will face tremendous challenges, given the major reforms that are to be made to Scotland’s justice system. I wish the committee all the very best in its work.
With that, I make a plea that the committee, notwithstanding its potential changes in membership, continues in the same vein—that it approaches its work in a positive manner, with the good accord and rapport that we have enjoyed over the past two years. I hope that that continues for members, and I will continue to play my part in the Parliament as best I can in that vein, which I think is sorely lacking in politics these days. I wish the members of the committee the very best over the next two and a half years.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 21 June 2023
Jamie Greene
Good morning, cabinet secretary and officials. I have a few questions that follow on from the cabinet secretary’s opening remarks, the first of which is an overarching question on the Scottish Government’s position on the concept of the bill and what it is trying to achieve.
I appreciate that the Scottish Government has questions on technical issues with regard to the role of the Lord Advocate, and perhaps it has further questions on the potential implications of the human rights aspects of granting immunity. However, fundamentally, from a policy point of view, what problem does the Scottish Government have with the concept of immunity from prosecution in return for information, for example, or with the concept of amnesty in general in Northern Ireland? What is its major substantive problem with that?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 21 June 2023
Jamie Greene
Thank you.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 21 June 2023
Jamie Greene
Obviously, that is at a fairly high level. I imagine that those prosecutions would be quite well publicised and would attract huge media interest, particularly when they relate to well-known online platforms.
The bill creates a specific new offence of encouraging or assisting the serious self-harm of another person. Although the offence itself is narrow, that could be interpreted quite widely. The idea of encouraging someone to self-harm strays from one territory. We commonly associate online encouragement of self-harm almost with online hate crime, in which the encouragement of self-harm is used perhaps more as an attack or an insult, rather than with something that might be perceived to be of assistance. That means that it could be quite widespread. We are all on social media and we all read those kinds of comments.
What are the implications for policing? We have heard concerns in the past that legislation is sometimes passed without a wide-ranging conversation with, for example, Police Scotland, which ultimately picks up the calls when people phone in to complain or to make allegations. What conversations have you had with cabinet secretary colleagues in other directorates about the resource implications, the scale and volume, or the public awareness raising that might go with this so that we do not suddenly and overnight create the perception of a new offence that the public will respond to?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 21 June 2023
Jamie Greene
No problem—thank you.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 21 June 2023
Jamie Greene
Can you clarify what you mean by that? Do you mean secondary legislation in the Scottish Parliament or at Westminster?