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 1489 contributions
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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Siobhian Brown
No, that is not fair. Early negotiations are on-going regarding the issue, and we will take forward and consider all the recommendations of this committee and the lead committee, and those of the legal sector. Engagement on the matter is on-going.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Siobhian Brown
Yes, we are engaging with all stakeholders and the legal sector as we progress the bill.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Siobhian Brown
Having considered the feedback from stakeholders, we intend to lodge amendments at stage 2 that will introduce a requirement for the Lord President’s consent to be obtained before any regulations are made using that provision and which will narrow the scope so that it will be used in response to a request by a regulator or the consumer panel.
The provisions are necessary to ensure that the guarantee fund, which is established in what is now quite aged legislation, continues to be able to adapt to changes in the way in which solicitors operate.
Do any of my officials want to come in on that?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Siobhian Brown
I would like to provide some context to what we are proposing by explaining how things are done in England and Wales. In England and Wales, the Legal Services Board acts as an independent regulator of the front-line regulators of solicitors, barristers and other branches of the legal profession. The LSB is accountable to the Parliament through the Lord Chancellor and is sponsored by the Ministry of Justice. The Lord Chancellor, a United Kingdom minister, has several statutory roles in relation to the Legal Services Board and the regulation of legal services within the Legal Services Act 2007. Some of those are very similar to the things that have been proposed in the bill.
I have listened to the views that the committee heard last week, and officials have been engaging with the judiciary and stakeholders.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Siobhian Brown
It is considered that the newer regulators run the greatest risk of encountering circumstances that would render them unable to operate at short notice and create a need for the Scottish ministers to step in and ensure that their members continued to be authorised to provide legal services to the public while alternative arrangements are worked out. It was considered appropriate to separate those provisions from section 49, which also deals with situations of necessity in relation to any regulator, allowing the Scottish ministers to take action as a measure of last resort, while maintaining the requirement for parliamentary scrutiny and approval in advance of such steps. However, given the similarity of the measures in sections 35 and 49, we are exploring amendments that would bring them together in one provision that would maintain the power to take action in urgent situations, take it away from the Scottish ministers, and transfer it to the Lord President.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Siobhian Brown
Section 41(6) has been criticised by the Law Society as preventing it from regulating legal businesses in terms of non-legal services—for example, that could involve estate agents, accountants or tax advisers. That is not the intention of the bill, and we are working with the Law Society to ensure that the introduction of entity regulation is as effective and beneficial as possible. Currently, we are exploring amendments that will make that clear.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Siobhian Brown
The power in section 41(2) gives the Scottish ministers flexibility to expand on the regulatory matters that will be covered by the regulatory rules in order, for example, to add clarity or address unforeseen issues. Currently, that will apply to the Law Society alone as the only category 1 regulator. However, if there were more than one category 1 regulator in the future and different regulators applied rules inconsistently in a way that would have a negative effect on consumers or competition, it might be beneficial to make regulations so that regulators took a consistent approach.
We have listened to the concerns and intend to lodge amendments that will narrow the scope of the power so that a change would be made in response to a request from bodies such as the regulators or the consumer panel. That would introduce a requirement for the Lord President’s consent and for consultation with regulators and the other bodies in respect of regulations under section 41(2).
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Siobhian Brown
No, we do not.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Siobhian Brown
I will be happy to meet you.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Siobhian Brown
Good morning. I welcome the opportunity to make a brief opening statement about the Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill. As set out in the delegated powers memorandum,
“The overarching policy objective of this Bill is to provide a modern, forward-looking legal services regulatory framework for Scotland that will ... promote competition, innovation and the public and consumer interest in an efficient, effective and independent legal sector.”
The bill seeks to implement a number of key recommendations from “Fit for the Future: Report of the Independent Review of Legal Services Regulation in Scotland” by Esther Roberton. That report’s primary recommendation of a single independent regulator resulted in largely polarised views from those in the legal and consumer landscapes. Despite that, there were many areas of broad agreement among stakeholders, including a common aspiration that any future model be transparent, open to public scrutiny and efficient, to ensure that justice remains accessible to all.
The bill is designed to take a proportionate approach that seeks to balance and deliver the key priorities of all stakeholders. As the committee knows, for each and every bill, the Scottish Government considers carefully the rationale for the inclusion of delegated powers—for example, to provide flexibility and to be able to react and be responsive to future events without having to resort to amending primary legislation. Therefore, the bill seeks to take a proportionate approach to what is provided for in the bill and what is provided for by way of delegated powers.
That said, I accept that certain delegated powers in the bill have caused concern among some stakeholders. Therefore, having reflected carefully on our discussions with stakeholders, including the senior judiciary, I intend to lodge amendments at stage 2 to address concerns about the role that the bill would give to Scottish ministers. On 27 September, I wrote to the lead committee, the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, to inform it of my intentions, and I provided further information on 27 October.
I reiterate that the Scottish Government has committed to continue to work collaboratively with stakeholders in respect of the reforms and throughout the passage of the bill. I am happy to take any questions.
