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 1567 contributions
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Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
British Sign Language Inquiry
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Maggie Chapman
Thanks. I know that Evelyn Tweed wants to ask about local plans, so you will be able to delve into that in a little bit more detail.
Hannah, do you have anything else to say?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
British Sign Language Inquiry
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Maggie Chapman
Thank you. You have spoken about teachers and about other public services that do not have a BSL facility. Are there any other areas where you think that measurable goals or specific outcomes would be beneficial? As you say, the plan is in its early days. Are there things that we can get into the plan at this stage?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
British Sign Language Inquiry
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Maggie Chapman
Given your focus this morning on access to justice and related issues, do other elements, priorities and issues in the second plan need to work as well in order to get the access to justice stuff right? Are there other things that you would say need more focus and more attention in order for the points that you have made about justice to be taken seriously and implemented effectively?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
British Sign Language Inquiry
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Maggie Chapman
That was helpful, and it moves me on nicely to Rachel O’Neill. I will ask your views about the second plan in general, but first, can you talk about the need to train people and ensure that the education is there so that deaf people can have the full range of career options?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
British Sign Language Inquiry
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Maggie Chapman
Thanks; that was helpful. Given the need for quite specific care and attention around access to justice issues, were you involved in the discussions on the development of the second plan? If so, when you made those points, what came back to you? How did we get from the broader scope of the first plan to the smaller, watered-down, less ambitious—that is how it was described this morning—second plan?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
British Sign Language Inquiry
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Maggie Chapman
No—that response is very helpful. One of our challenges is the disconnect, almost, between good ideas happening but the consequences not necessarily being that meaningful, so your response is helpful to hear.
Alana Harper, I put the same kick-off questions to you. What are your views of the second plan? Where is it good and where are there gaps or issues? What about that point about it having been watered down—not only including fewer recommendations and things to do but being watered down?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
British Sign Language Inquiry
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Maggie Chapman
Thank you. Alana, do you want to come back in?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
British Sign Language Inquiry
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Maggie Chapman
Does Lucy Clark want to say anything about the second plan?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
British Sign Language Inquiry
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Maggie Chapman
Those specific points are helpful, as we will have to make recommendations to the Government after this inquiry.
I am curious about your response to a question that is similar to one that I asked Jemina Napier. Your focus, clearly, is on education and the full suite of concerns around that. What else needs to work for your strategic priorities through the plan to be realised?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
British Sign Language Inquiry
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Maggie Chapman
That was helpful—thank you. This is my final question. Off the back of some of the discussions that we had with the previous panel, there is a sense that having a second version of the national advisory group—NAG mark 2—would help to drive forward the national plan. That might help with the development of some of the issues that you have highlighted should be implemented now rather than waiting until the third plan. I wondered whether any of you had any views on that as a way of driving development of the national plan. Jemina Napier, do you want to come in first?
