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 1673 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Russell Findlay
That might be beneficial to people—
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Russell Findlay
I have a question in response to the issue that was raised by Paul Sweeney—criticism of Police Scotland in relation to drugs consumption rooms. I was quite surprised by that, because my understanding was that Police Scotland has engaged with the Government and has been supportive of the proposal. I would be keen to hear your view on that.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Russell Findlay
I have a quick question about the drug consumption room pilot in Glasgow. Dr Saket Priyadarshi told the BBC that crack cocaine and any other substances that are smoked or inhaled were removed from the original plan because of the smoking ban. As far as I can see, that has had little pick-up.
Is that being reviewed? Are substances of that nature likely to be included? If so, does that raise potential questions about staff safety?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Russell Findlay
Thank you. I have a final question on drug checking services. Audrey Nicoll has already talked about them.
In a recent debate, you correctly said, minister, that there is no such thing as a safe consumption room—it is a safer consumption room. Some of the substances are inherently dangerous and there is no getting away from that. What I do not understand—this may be naivety on my part—is what the purpose of a drug testing or checking facility or service would be. Are you checking for the purity or the identity of the substance? If you then tell people that it is the substance that they believe it to be, is that essentially giving them a green light to take it when, in itself, it could pose a danger to them? What happens if you give a red light?
It all seems very confusing and a bit of a legal minefield. What work is being done to establish what the purpose of those services would be?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Russell Findlay
No, it is fine. Thank you.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Russell Findlay
I intend to ask only one question, but it feels important to provide some details about a specific case with trauma-informed practice. I have been working with Leslie Jones—
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Russell Findlay
Absolutely, yes. I have been working with Leslie Jones, whose brother Tony was murdered. She attended the killer’s parole hearing and she was told to sit in silence. She objected to his release in writing, fearing for the safety of others. He was subsequently released. She was required to sign a gagging order not to discuss the hearing. Her brother’s killer was then recalled to prison, but Leslie was not told that nor allowed to know why. She found out only because he has another parole hearing. She is consumed by concern, not knowing whether he has harmed somebody else. She has had letters calling her brother “Anthony”, but that is not his name. She has had letters addressed to her dead father. She describes the parole process as secretive and she says that she is
“climbing the walls; the process is tormenting me”.
Leslie’s experiences are quite shocking but all too typical in some respects and they seriously call into question the issue of trauma-informed practice.
Are you confident that the bill will result in victims and their families being treated with dignity, compassion and respect or perhaps, as John Watt already suggested, a ground-up review of practices across the criminal justice agencies would be a better starting point?
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Russell Findlay
The only reason why I went into detail was to illustrate how difficult it is for many victims and families. However, the more general point was whether the legislation in the bill will materially or practically fix a lot of these problems. Families like this one have their doubts.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Russell Findlay
Does anyone else have a view on that general question? If not, thank you.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Russell Findlay
Perhaps the clerks can pass on the answer to us.
