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 1508 contributions
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Karen Adam
Welcome to the 17th meeting in 2025 of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. We have received apologies from Pam Gosal. Tess White and Marie McNair join us online. I welcome Paul McLennan MSP to his first meeting of the committee.
With that, I turn to our first item of business, which is to invite Paul McLennan to declare any relevant interests.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Karen Adam
Yes.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Karen Adam
You can do that now, minister.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Karen Adam
We move on to our discussion of the Children (Scotland) Act 2020. We are again joined by the Minister for Victims and Community Safety, who is supported by Simon Stockwell, family law unit head at the Scottish Government. You are very welcome. I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Karen Adam
Thank you. We have questions from Marie McNair, who joins us online.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Karen Adam
The next questions are from Tess White, who joins us remotely.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Karen Adam
As members are content that they have asked all the questions that they wished to ask, that concludes our evidence taking. The committee will reflect on the evidence and consider our next steps. I thank the minister and her officials for joining us.
That concludes our formal business in public. We will move into private session to consider the remaining items on our agenda.
11:03 Meeting continued in private until 11:33.Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Karen Adam
We now have a question from Marie McNair, who joins us online.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Karen Adam
Item 3 is an evidence session on the non-implementation of parts of specific acts of the Scottish Parliament. Those acts are the Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021, the Children (Scotland) Act 2020 and the Female Genital Mutilation (Protection and Guidance) (Scotland) Act 2020.
This morning’s session will be split into three parts, with approximately half an hour spent on each of the acts. The committee will hear from the Minister for Victims and Community Safety on the first two acts, and then from the Minister for Equalities on the third act. I refer members to papers 1 and 2.
I welcome to the meeting the Minister for Victims and Community Safety, Siobhian Brown, to discuss the Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021. From the Scottish Government, the minister is joined by Jeff Gibbons, violence against women and girls unit head, and Matt Elsby, deputy director of fiscal policy and constitution. You are all very welcome.
I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Karen Adam
Thank you. Do any other members wish to ask a question? I will go to Maggie Chapman.