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 3441 contributions
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
I would certainly be willing for the committee to try to tease out an explanation. Transport for London deals with tens of millions of people using the system. The Glasgow pilot is referred to as being useful but not necessarily cost-effective on a commercial basis, which may reflect the numbers involved in relation to the cost of setting it up. I do not know. Any citizen of Glasgow who travels abroad is surprised at how far behind the smart technology is in the largest city in Scotland. There is more that we could tease out in relation to that.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
It strikes me as peculiar that we have introduced barrier technology at a series of stations but that we cannot programme the barriers to be pay as you go. I would not have thought that that was impossible.
Who should we try to pursue these issues with? Meanwhile, we should write to the Scottish Government to clarify whether Scottish Rail Holdings Ltd is covered by the consumer duty legislation. If it considers that SRHL is not covered, we should ask what action it proposes to take to ensure that it is. It would be a deficiency if it is not.
I was also struck by what Mr Eckton said in his latest submission about how easy it is to miss the advertising on fares. We should ask SRHL about the action that it is taking to ensure that people can easily identify that. I would be very interested to know what advertising it does and how it evaluates whether that advertising has been successful.
Are there any other thoughts or comments?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
That is a perfectly fair observation. The actions that we have discussed can be linked back to the actual aim of the petition, but I agree that we have to be careful. Although I welcomed everything that Monica Lennon had to contribute, it invited us to stray slightly beyond, in a number of areas, the specific ambition of the petition.
We are always willing to receive an additional petition from another party on all those other matters. If we opened up an inquiry in the broadest possible terms in relation to every petition, we would—to extend your metaphor, Mr Ewing—be trawling very deeply.
Are members content to proceed on the basis of the various recommendations that we have had?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
We can see if that works. Ultimately, the project would have to be taken forward by others, but I take the point that it would have to include a much wider range of views to be certain that it was viable, in addition to any capping proposal that might proceed.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Quite a bit of the evidence that we have heard was not so much about the ambition around the delivery of various principles. Alexander Stewart will ask a couple of questions in relation to that.
I go back to the medication-assisted treatment standards and the importance that you attach to their being embedded—I refer back to that word. To what extent did the work that you did suggest how far adrift we were from the delivery of that principle?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you.
10:30Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Does Carole Hunter have anything to add before I bring in Alexander Stewart, who will pursue that point?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
That was one of the most striking parts of the earlier evidence that we heard in the consideration of the petition. From the committee’s point of view, it took some time before we were able to get the Government to accept that there seemed to be a breakdown in how it could be demonstrated that a prescribed drug had reached the individual for whom it was intended. It was not that the intention was not there or that the process was not happening, but it was impossible to demonstrate that it had actually happened because of the lack of a national standard. As a committee, we felt that that was a significant deficiency. The petitioner’s experience, which was tragic and sad in its ultimate conclusion, made that clear. That is the reason that we continue to pursue the points that the petition raises.
10:45Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
PE1887, which was lodged by Nicola Murray, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to create an unborn victims of violence act, creating a specific offence that enables courts to hand down longer sentences for perpetrators of domestic violence that causes miscarriage.
Members will recall the evidence session that we held at our last meeting, with stakeholders, who raised many important issues in relation to the petition. We have also heard directly from the petitioner, Nicola Murray, about her personal experience and her desire to see a change in the current system.
In advance of the meeting, we had a chance to reflect on the evidence. Today affords us an opportunity publicly to give some thought to what we have heard and how we might take matters further forward. This is one of the more important petitions that we have heard. We have all been very struck by the evidence as we have listened to it.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Jackson Carlaw
PE1906, which has been lodged by Peter Kelly on behalf of @ReplacetheM8, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to commission an independent feasibility study to investigate scenarios for reducing the impact of the M8 between the M74 and Glasgow cathedral, including, specifically, the complete removal and repurposing of the land.
When we previously considered the petition on 23 February, we agreed to write to stakeholders seeking their views on the action that the petition calls for. Glasgow City Council has highlighted its commitment to address the aims of the petition as part of its “Strategic Plan 2022 to 2027”. It has committed to
“Commission research on and explore options to reduce the impact of the M8 on the city centre, and review opportunities to re-engineer other roads infrastructure to become more people-friendly including options for long-term replacement.”
It also states that funding and collaboration with stakeholders such as Transport Scotland is required to take forward the research.
We have also had submissions from Professor Richard Williams, who provided information on a recent project in São Paulo, and from Dr Wood, who supports the petition. Dr Wood’s submission highlights relevant traffic reduction projects in other parts of the UK, and the related economic development opportunities.
Do members have any comments or suggestions for action? I recall that Mr Sweeney has a particular interest in the petition.