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 1584 contributions
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Collette Stevenson
No, not at all. It is all fascinating stuff.
You touched on your annual report, which ties in to our discussion. Who oversees the procuring of all those technologies? You mentioned local authorities, and we have also heard that only 26 per cent of biometric data in Scotland is held by Police Scotland. Do you have any input into the procurement process?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Collette Stevenson
Hi, Katy. The membership of the proposed group does not include a representative from the Conservative Party. Is there a particular reason for that?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Collette Stevenson
I am pleased to propose amendments 56 and 57, having raised the issue of post-legislative scrutiny of the bill alongside my colleagues on the Criminal Justice Committee in our stage 1 report.
As a committee, we spent considerable time discussing the data available on the impact of fireworks and the importance of a post-legislative scrutiny review of the bill’s implementation. I therefore welcome the minister’s response to our recommendations on those issues, her willingness to give them further consideration and the opportunity to meet her to discuss them further.
Amendments 56 and 57 seek to place a duty on Scottish ministers to report to Parliament on the operation of the bill’s provisions within five years following royal assent. As we heard from the minister at stage 1 and as is outlined in the bill’s accompanying documents, it is expected that the provisions will come into force over the first two years following royal assent. In practice, that provides three years for gathering the required information and for monitoring and reporting on any change. That appears to me a proportionate timescale to allow for the implementation and initial operation of the proposed measures and, therefore, to ensure that the report that is submitted is sufficiently detailed and worthwhile. Amendment 56 also sets out that the report would be required to include appropriate information about criminal proceedings and convictions, the number of incidents in the reporting period and, importantly, the views and experiences of people in Scotland on how firework use has been impacted in their communities.
09:45Amendment 129, in the name of Mr Greene, would, like my amendments, require Scottish ministers to
“review the operation and effectiveness of this Act.”
I believe that we are aligned in our desire to make certain that the legislation is working as intended, and to afford Parliament due levels of scrutiny, but I consider that commencing the reporting period on the day of royal assent, as set out in my amendments, will mean that there is no delay. The period is easily understandable and will not be tied to individual provisions coming into force. In my view, my amendments improve the transparency of the bill’s implementation, allowing members to develop a full understanding of how requirements are being met and to ensure that the legislation is working effectively.
I hope that members will support amendments 56 and 57.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Collette Stevenson
Good morning, Franziska. It is so lovely to hear about Freiburg’s approach to being a sustainable city. I also understand that it is the sunniest place in Germany, so it sounds like a lovely place to live.
I want to ask about procurement. Freiburg’s website states that the sustainability of municipal properties and procurement has been a key consideration for many years. What changes did you make in your organisation and your working culture to establish a programme of energy efficiency improvements and changes to procurement practices?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Collette Stevenson
It is great to hear that. Do you measure how much of your supply chain is procured locally so that you have supply chain visibility?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Collette Stevenson
That is very interesting. Thank you.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 26 May 2022
Collette Stevenson
I am conscious of the time. However, if any of the other witnesses want to come in, I do not want to exclude them.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 26 May 2022
Collette Stevenson
Good morning. It is lovely to meet you all online and in person. I will touch on accessibility and what we have done about that so far. Would you like to see any of those changes continue? How can we enhance or tweak what we do? Some of you have touched on it. Today, there are six witnesses at the meeting; four of you are online and two are in the committee room. Do you think that that is the right balance? To contextualise that, is there anything else that we can do to enhance your journey to interact with us here, in Parliament?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Collette Stevenson
Offending and mental ill health go hand in hand. I think that it is fair to say that many people suffer from mental health issues to varying degrees at the point when they offend. What approach are the police and partner agencies taking, as it is obvious that mental ill health is a huge contributory factor to offending behaviour?
I have another issue that I would like to explore further. At the point at which someone is charged and the police are writing up their report, are the police able to refer to mental health issues so that that is noted on the file for when the matter gets to court?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Collette Stevenson
Do we have a consistent and easily understood definition of what constitutes online sexual abuse and exploitation? Stuart Allardyce, I watched the video on your website. Is that used by multiple agencies? Is there a consistent approach or are we muddying the waters with what we are doing?