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 1552 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Transgender Prisoners and Scottish Prisons
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Pauline McNeill
But, with respect, that is not what I am asking. I know that you have confidence in the system. I am asking you directly whether you were aware that, when the policy was developed, women’s groups were not consulted. Did anyone tell you that?
Criminal Justice Committee
Transgender Prisoners and Scottish Prisons
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Pauline McNeill
Thank you.
I will ask Teresa Medhurst a similar question, as I am trying to get to the bottom of this. I know that you were not governor for the whole time period. You have probably heard the interview with a former prisoner who said:
“My whole time in prison”
I was
“on constant high alert, my nerves were frazzled with fear. These incredibly violent men were walking around the communal shower area naked and sometimes”—
I apologise for the language—
“clearly aroused. Myself and other women were in cubicles with only a curtain to protect us. I was shaking with fear.”
I raised that issue with the deputy governor. I have to confess that I was shocked at the defence of the policy at the time. If there is going to be change, I would welcome it.
What is your view on her comments? I was told, first, that what she said was not true. Secondly, I was told that women are not at any risk and that there are separate showering arrangements. However, that does not seem to bear out the testimony of women prisoners.
Criminal Justice Committee
Transgender Prisoners and Scottish Prisons
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Pauline McNeill
Sorry—I am not trying to be difficult; I am just trying to get to the bottom of this. As the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans, does it concern you that we have had a policy in place since 2014 that women’s groups have not been consulted on, even though they have raised concerns about it? Going forward, would you want to make sure that that changes?
Criminal Justice Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Pauline McNeill
I have one additional point, which goes back to the issue of the police budget. We need to know how the £80 million additional resource squares with the cabinet secretary’s statement that he has
“no intention of overseeing a budget for the police force that results in 4,000 officers leaving.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 23 November 2022; c 12.]
I do not know what £80 million actually means, but I would be concerned if £80 million did not represent a figure that would prevent 4,000 officers from leaving. Should we pursue that with the Scottish Police Authority or with the cabinet secretary?
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Pauline McNeill
That is at the end of page 4. The policy note covers the preparation of prisoners for parole hearings, which seems a good thing. It says:
“This allows information to be obtained from the person concerned in advance to assess whether they are ready to proceed.”
I do not know whether or not this is relevant, but it has occurred to me that some prisoners will have literacy issues. If a new rule is to be introduced about preparation, it might be worth mentioning that it should include support for any literacy issues.
10:45Criminal Justice Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Pauline McNeill
I do not for a minute think that the cabinet secretary intended to mislead the committee. However, I totally agree with what Jamie Greene has said, and I took what the cabinet secretary said to mean the same as what Jamie thought. I was really pleased when the cabinet secretary said that, and what is said in the letter does not make sense to me.
My understanding is that the chief constable said that, if there is a flat cash budget, that will result in about 4,000, or whatever the figure was, people leaving the police force—well, not leaving, but I assumed that that meant people would need to be allowed to leave or that there would be cuts. However, the cabinet secretary rephrased it by writing:
“I said that I had ‘no intention of overseeing a budget for the police force that results in 4,000’”—
that is okay so far—“officers leaving”. Do you see the distinction that I am making? That does not make sense. I thought that the issue was not that 4,000 officers would leave but that we could not fund 4,000 officers.
Criminal Justice Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Pauline McNeill
Yes.
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Pauline McNeill
There is quite a lot contained in the Scottish statutory instrument, and in ploughing our way through it we come across a number of fairly significant issues. We have a very short procedure for commenting on something that could be extremely important.
I wish to highlight two issues. The first is covered on page 4 of our note, which refers to risk management plans and says:
“There is also a new addition to the rule on decision summaries (rule 34) which provides that the Board must give reasons for a decision where it differs from the recommendations in a RMP. These provisions ensure that the most recent assessment of risk is available to the Board in their consideration of such a case and that they articulate their reasoning in reaching their decision.”
When I read that, I thought that that was quite an onerous responsibility for the Parole Board. If we have an authority with expert opinion that makes a recommendation, it will be quite onerous for the Parole Board to set out why it has gone against that. That is just an observation.
The point in the policy note about prisoner preparation says:
“A provision has been added to the rules to assist the person concerned to be better prepared for a parole hearing.”
I do not think that there is any mention about literacy issues. I thought that that should perhaps have been mentioned.
Criminal Justice Committee
Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 January 2023
Pauline McNeill
Will that show that a high percentage of prisoners who are on remand are involved in solemn proceedings, or is that too general a statement?
Criminal Justice Committee
Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 January 2023
Pauline McNeill
Thank you, that is really helpful. I have one other question, which I put to last week’s panel. We attended a custody court—I thank the SCTS again for letting us in on that because it was really helpful—and the evidence that we heard there was that, these days, fiscals do not seem to have the discretion to take a different view from what is marked up on a case. Procurators fiscal who served previously whom I have met said that they would have had more discretion.
I asked last week whether that was because centralisation of marking in the Crown Office has led to a more rigid approach. I am really keen for you to comment on that because it seems to me—correct me if I am wrong—that a procurator fiscal, as a highly trained lawyer, has an individual commission to make decisions on behalf of the Lord Advocate. Why should a procurator fiscal not be able to use their discretion, if they hear, in court, reasons to change how a case is marked?
