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 1041 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Angela Constance
I think that that predates my time as Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs. I do not know the answer to that question, and I do not know whether the officials can say whether there was another working title. In general, it is not uncommon for proposed legislation that is being worked on internally to have a holding name, which is changed. However, I do not know whether the bill had a different name.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Angela Constance
The study suggested that, if one part of our verdict system was changed in isolation—if we moved from three to two verdicts—that would increase the prospect of convictions. The study demonstrated that it was imperative to reform the three aspects of our jury system in tandem, because they are all interrelated in one system.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Angela Constance
The research showed that a balanced approach is needed. The purpose of the reforms is to maintain confidence in the justice system by improving the experience for complainers and ensuring that the system is transparent and easily understood by everybody, because we all have a shared interest in it. We must also ensure the system’s integrity and take a balanced approach that protects the rights of the accused.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Angela Constance
Mr Swinney poses a logical question, which I will ask officials to comment on, too. I am not aware that the research threw up any such unintended consequences. I am also not aware, although I stand to be corrected, that any jurisdiction with a jury size of 12—we should bear it in mind that Scotland’s jury size of 15 is unusual—has significant issues of trials being abandoned because of problems with juries continuing. We will seek to double check that, but I am not aware of concerns.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Angela Constance
The jury research held some factors still so that it could explore the impact of different majorities, different jury sizes and moving from three to two verdicts—for example, it looked at mock juries in the context of three verdicts or two verdicts.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Angela Constance
I think that you have skipped over the evidence that, if we moved from three verdicts to two, mock juries were more likely to convict. Therefore, we would have to adapt and move from a simple to a qualified majority, in order to ensure that there is balance in the verdict system. That is a cornerstone of the system.
The reforms are designed around the experiential aspects of trials and to address issues of transparency and clarity; they are not designed to increase or decrease the number of convictions. The change in the majority is there to balance the change in the number of verdicts.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Angela Constance
That is what the research tells us.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Angela Constance
That will be for the head of the judiciary—the Lord Justice General. It is important that we are clear about that. The Lord Justice General will be able to appoint across the field and to appoint sheriffs as well as judges to the court on the basis of people’s experience, expertise and training.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Angela Constance
If Mr Swinney has specific propositions to make to strengthen the obligations on various actors and agencies that have a responsibility towards victims, we look forward to receiving those.
At the moment, we are taking a belt-and-braces approach. I am very conscious of the fact that I have a manifesto commitment to deliver on the establishment of a victims and witnesses commissioner. Of course, as an independent committee, you will come to your own views and make your own recommendations. I can assure Mr Swinney, the convener and, indeed, all members of the committee that all recommendations will be given a very fair hearing.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Angela Constance
I referred to the fact that, although the proposed introduction of a victims and witnesses commissioner has been broadly supported, there has been a lot of active campaigning on the matter, and there is never unanimity among any group. I met Mr Duffy not that long ago.
I refer back to my earlier comments. As a Government, we continue to invest heavily in victims organisations, whether through the equally safe fund or the victim-centred approach fund, which sits at £48 million. Of course, it is the job of the Parliament to hold the Government to account on what we are investing in victims organisations, and it is the job of the Government and ministers such as me to explain where we are investing the resource.
I hope to convey to the committee that, when we are providing £48 million for a victim-centred approach fund and £19 million for equally safe, the costs of establishing a victims commissioner, and the on-going costs, although not insignificant, are small in comparison.
