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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Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Karen Adam
There will be a division.
For
Adam, Karen (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP)
Chapman, Maggie (North East Scotland) (Green)
McNair, Marie (Clydebank and Milngavie) (SNP)
O’Kane, Paul (West Scotland) (Lab)
Tweed, Evelyn (Stirling) (SNP)
Against
Gallacher, Meghan (Central Scotland) (Con)
Wells, Annie (Glasgow) (Con)
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Karen Adam
Welcome to the 12th meeting of 2024, in session 6, of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. There are no apologies.
We will consider a total of four affirmative instruments. Our first agenda item is the consideration of the first two of those, which are the draft Equality Act 2010 (Specification of Public Authorities) (Scotland) Order 2024 and the draft Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024. I welcome Siobhian Brown, Minister for Victims and Community Safety; Jenny Hunt, senior policy manager, safety openness and learning legislation team; Rachel Innes, community interventions team leader, community justice division; and Jordan McGrory, solicitor, legal directorate—all from the Scottish Government. I refer members to paper 1 and invite the minister to speak to the draft instruments.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Karen Adam
Thank you. That is helpful.
No member has indicated that they wish to ask further questions or make further comments, so we will now move to item 2, which is formal consideration of the instruments. I invite the minister to move motions S6M-12908 and S6M-12909.
Motions moved,
That the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee recommends that the Equality Act 2010 (Specification of Public Authorities) (Scotland) Order 2024 [draft] be approved;
That the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee recommends that the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024 [draft] be approved.—[Siobhian Brown]
Motions agreed to.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Karen Adam
That completes our consideration of the affirmative instrument. We will suspend briefly, to allow for a change of officials.
10:13 Meeting suspended.10:13 On resuming—
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Karen Adam
Item 3 is consideration of an affirmative instrument. I welcome back to the meeting minister Siobhian Brown, who is now accompanied by Scottish Government officials Lisa Davidson, tribunals policy team leader, and Natalie Milligan, solicitor, legal directorate.
I again refer members to paper 1. I invite the minister to speak to the draft instrument.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Karen Adam
The question is, that motion S6M-12994 be agreed to. Are we agreed?
Members: No.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Karen Adam
The result of the division is: For 5, Against 2, Abstentions 0.
Motion agreed to,
That the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee recommends that the Damages (Review of Rate of Return) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 [draft] be approved.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Karen Adam
We could still write to the Government, Meghan, if you would like to set out your questions around what happened today.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Karen Adam
That completes consideration of the affirmative instrument. I thank the minister and all our officials for their attendance today.
10:27 Meeting continued in private until 10:44.Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Human Rights Commission (Appointment)
Meeting date: 16 May 2024
Karen Adam
As a member of the cross-party selection panel that was established by the Presiding Officer under our standing orders, I am delighted to speak to the motion in my name inviting members of Parliament to agree to nominate Professor Angela O’Hagan to His Majesty the King for appointment as the chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission. The Presiding Officer chaired the selection panel, and the other members were Miles Briggs, Maggie Chapman, Katy Clark and Nicola Sturgeon.
As members will be aware, the Scottish Human Rights Commission is the national human rights institution for Scotland, and its role is to promote human rights and, in particular, to encourage best practice in relation to human rights.
I turn to our nominee, who is in the gallery today. Professor Angela O’Hagan is currently professor of equality and public policy at Glasgow Caledonian University. She is also the depute director of the WiSE—women in Scotland’s economy—research centre for economic justice.
Angela’s career encompasses leadership roles in the community and statutory sectors in Scotland, including as director of Carers Scotland and as head of campaigns and communications with Oxfam Scotland. She has served on a number of advisory and project groups with successive Scottish Governments, including currently as the independent chair of the equality and human rights budget advisory group, and of the national advisory council on women and girls.
Angela has an international profile—in particular, in gender and human rights budgeting and through membership of academic and civil society networks. The panel believes that Angela’s blend of skills, knowledge and experience will make her an excellent chair. Together with the members, she will ensure that the Scottish Human Rights Commission fulfils its statutory duties and that the office is run efficiently and effectively and meets its strategic objectives.
I move,
That the Parliament nominates Professor Angela O’Hagan to His Majesty The King for appointment as the Chair of the Scottish Commission for Human Rights.
