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 885 contributions
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Kaukab Stewart
With that, we have come to the end of this session. The time has gone very quickly. This has been, in fact, the final live session for our inquiry, and I thank the minister and her officials for attending.
This morning, we heard from Baroness Helena Kennedy and, over the past few weeks, from a wide variety of stakeholders who are doing amazing work up and down the country. We have also heard from local authorities and Mears, and we have received many written testimonies.
We have also undertaken two sessions in private, when we went out into communities and spoke to asylum seekers and refugees to hear their voices directly. It was invaluable to see the person and not just talk about the issue in the abstract. We now face the challenge of putting all the evidence together and creating a report over the summer.
We asked the UK Government to take part in our inquiry, but unfortunately, no response was received from it. I would have liked to have said that our inquiry was comprehensive but, due to the lack of response from the UK Government, it is not. However, I feel that we have captured a wide range of voices across all the themes that concern asylum seekers and refugees.
On that note, I once again thank the minister and her officials for attending, and I draw to a close the public part of the meeting.
12:05 Meeting continued in private until 12:19.Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Kaukab Stewart
That completes our consideration of the affirmative instrument. I thank the minister and her officials for attending.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Kaukab Stewart
What is it that you wish us to put on record?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Kaukab Stewart
Welcome to the 15th meeting in 2023 of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. We have received apologies from Pam Gosal.
Under agenda item 1, do we agree to take in private item 6, which is consideration of the evidence that we will hear today?
Members indicated agreement.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Kaukab Stewart
I invite the committee to agree to delegate to me the publication of a short, factual report on our deliberations on the affirmative Scottish statutory instrument that we have considered today.
Members: indicated agreement.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Kaukab Stewart
In that case, and bearing in mind what Rachael Hamilton has said, are members content not to make any comment to Parliament on the instrument?
Members: indicated agreement.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Kaukab Stewart
I invite you to make a brief opening statement, which will be followed by questions from members of the committee.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Kaukab Stewart
I suspend the meeting for a short time while we change over to the second panel of witnesses.
11:01 Meeting suspended.Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Kaukab Stewart
I must intervene, as we are coming to the end of our session. I am sure that the minister will be more than happy to answer any further questions from the committee that are put in writing, and we will then have clarity with regard to phraseology and understanding. I am sure that you will be happy to do that, minister.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Kaukab Stewart
Thank you, cabinet secretary. No member of the committee has indicated that they wish to ask questions or make comments, so we will move straight to agenda item 3, which is formal consideration of the motion for approval of the affirmative instrument. I invite the minister to move motion S6M-08951.
Motion moved,
That the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee recommends that the Forced Marriage etc. (Protection and Jurisdiction) (Scotland) Act 2011 (Application to Civil Partnerships and Consequential Provision) Order 2023 [draft] be approved.—[Shirley-Anne Somerville]
Motion agreed to.