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 3543 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Audrey Nicoll
We heard from the cabinet secretary on the legislative consent memorandum, in which the Scottish Government recommends that the Scottish Parliament should not consent to the relevant provisions in the bill as set out in the draft motion. Our role today is to consider the content of the memorandum and to decide whether we agree to not consent or otherwise.
At this stage, I want to open things up to members for queries, comments or questions. I will then formally ask the question on the LCM.
Criminal Justice Committee
Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Audrey Nicoll
That is fine.
Criminal Justice Committee
Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Are members content to delegate to me the publication of the report that summarises the outcome of our deliberations on the LCM?
Members indicated agreement.
Criminal Justice Committee
Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Thank you, members—that has been helpful.
I will add a few personal comments. Jamie Greene talked about the correspondence between the Lord Advocate and the secretary of state. The Lord Advocate’s most recent correspondence was on 10 October, when she wrote to the new Northern Ireland secretary and outlined suggestions on the bill. As far as I am aware, the Lord Advocate has not had any response to that. On that note, the bill is nearly complete and through its journey, so I am concerned that nothing has come back from the UK Government in response to the Lord Advocate’s correspondence.
Secondly, I want to point out some comments from the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights that the bill runs the risk of being found to be non-compliant with human rights. Indeed, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission also expressed grave concerns about the bill and its incompatibility with the Good Friday agreement. The cabinet secretary alluded to that in his statement when he joined us a couple of weeks ago.
Finally, I am uncomfortable with the notion that the ICRIR would have a role in Scotland that could impact on people’s access to justice, whatever that might be. I am also uncomfortable with the notion that the role and function of the Lord Advocate could be affected.
Does the committee agree with the Scottish Government that the Scottish Parliament should not consent to the relevant provisions in the bill as they have been set out in the Scottish Government’s draft motion?
It is probably best to go round the table and let members indicate their position.
For
Clark, Katy (West Scotland) (Lab)
MacGregor, Fulton (Coatbridge and Chryston) (SNP)
Mackay, Rona (Strathkelvin and Bearsden) (SNP)
McNeill, Pauline (Glasgow) (Lab)
Nicoll, Audrey (Aberdeen South and North Kincardine) (SNP)
Stevenson, Collette (East Kilbride) (SNP)
Against
Findlay, Russell (West Scotland) (Con)
Greene, Jamie (West Scotland) (Con)
Criminal Justice Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Minister, I thank you and your officials for joining us. We will pause to allow you and your officials to leave.
Criminal Justice Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Audrey Nicoll
That was a very comprehensive response, and you covered a lot in it. Following on from that, I refer to the written submission that we received from Claire Wilson, who is the chief social worker at Aberdeen City Council. In answer to a question about whether it would be better to address issues in the system before introducing a new level of management through a care service model, she said:
“What would be beneficial is to pause the Bill in terms of justice to enable a review of the current system, co-design a new one and then a careful transition over to the NCS once the social care part is set up and arrangements in place.”
Bearing in mind that we have the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill coming down the track, as you have alluded to, and the potential increase in workload that that will bring to justice social work, I am interested in your thoughts about the suggestion that Ms Wilson made in her written submission.
Criminal Justice Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Thank you, minister. We move to members’ questions.
Criminal Justice Committee
Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Rona Mackay has just outlined part of this, but I remind members that there are two reasons why the Government does not recommend giving consent. First,
“The Government is of the view that the Bill, as currently drafted, is incompatible with the Scottish Government’s views that those who have suffered during the Troubles are able to obtain justice and that those who committed offences during that time are appropriately held to account/punished.”
Secondly,
“the Bill makes novel and unwelcome changes to the functions and responsibilities of the Lord Advocate as head of the systems of criminal prosecution and investigation of deaths in Scotland”.
Those were the two key reasons. Does anyone else want to come in?
Criminal Justice Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Thank you. I bring in Fulton MacGregor, to be followed by Russell Findlay.
Criminal Justice Committee
Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Audrey Nicoll
The next agenda item is to return to our consideration of the issue of legislative consent for the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill following the evidence that we took from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans. I refer members to paper 3. Members will see that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has also provided us with its correspondence with the Northern Ireland Office.
I will open up the discussion to members. We will then consider what recommendation we want to make to the Parliament on legislative consent.
