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 1824 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 31 January 2024
Martin Whitfield
Will you take an intervention, minister, or would you rather take it at the end?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 31 January 2024
Martin Whitfield
Will the member take an intervention?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 31 January 2024
Martin Whitfield
Or an undercapacity problem.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 31 January 2024
Martin Whitfield
I am very grateful for that. That was helpful.
On the issue of restorative justice for children, such an approach can work only when all parties are open to it and maintain that openness as they go through the system. We have seen challenges arising with restorative justice in other environments in which there has been a misunderstanding as to what the restorative justice is, or rather a misunderstanding among those surrounding the individuals who take part in restorative justice. The minister was right to mention the 2017 publication. Is there an intention to revisit, to review or, indeed, to republish that guidance under the provisions of the bill that the committee has already amended? Will that be taken forward?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 January 2024
Martin Whitfield
It is right to say that others’ rights and an individual young person’s welfare can clearly come into conflict. However, when a young person’s own rights and own welfare could come into conflict, I struggle to see when the decision would be that their welfare should take priority over their rights. Will the minister expand on when she sees the potential danger of a conflict between a young person’s rights and their welfare?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 January 2024
Martin Whitfield
On that point, is there not a challenge, given that, when you have a victim who is within the children’s hearings system through one part of the referral, their welfare is taken into account, but a victim who does not happen to be part of the children’s hearings system, because of the circumstances of the individual referral to it, will go unheard?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 January 2024
Martin Whitfield
It is a pleasure to take part in this stage 2 debate. For the purpose of practice, if nothing else, it may be beneficial that there is only one amendment in this first group.
Amendment 164 aims to highlight the importance of the purpose that underpins the bill, which is to promote the wellbeing and rights of children in the children’s hearings system and the criminal justice system. That was reflected in the policy memorandum that was published when the bill was introduced, but clearer evidence as to the purpose behind the bill should be given in the preamble.
I move amendment 164.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 January 2024
Martin Whitfield
I am slightly disappointed by the minister’s response. There is almost a contradiction between seeking the nuance that the bill and its amendments contain and saying that my amendment 164 would blur the overall view. The promotion of the rights of children and their wellbeing should sit at the heart of anyone in Scotland, particularly when children come into contact with the children’s hearings system and the criminal justice system. Under the circumstances, I will press the amendment.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 January 2024
Martin Whitfield
Three amendments in this group bear my name. Two of them—amendments 174 and 176—cover a similar situation in that they seek to add the victim into the consideration when an MRC or CSO is made.
The other amendment in my name, amendment 184, relates to the procedural rules and speaks to the responsibility to take into account the victim’s needs in decision making. We have heard a lot about transparency and the role of the children’s hearings system in making decisions, and it is important that those who are closest to the situation but who are not immediately involved in the decision making are aware of what is going on and that their needs are taken into account when decisions are made.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 January 2024
Martin Whitfield
I am, as always, conscious of the time and the contribution necessary to get these things over the line.
My amendments relate to the reporting duty by which the use of multi-agency approaches will be held to account. The fact is that no one solution will help any individual young person; what is required is the coming together of different areas of support. There is an obligation on the Scottish ministers to ensure that those different areas can come together, are recognised and can have a say in supporting our young people. Amendment 188 requires the steps that have been taken and approaches that have been pursued to be set out, to allow us to hold to account the Scottish Government or the Scottish ministers as those responsible for such approaches.
