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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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Jackson Carlaw
Returning to the minister, I will have to put her on the spot by asking whether the funding will indeed be available for recording that information.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Jackson Carlaw
I interrupted you earlier to go to Mr O’Kelly, minister. Was there anything more that you wanted to say?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you. I call David Torrance.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Jackson Carlaw
That brings us to the end of our consideration of new petitions. We will have a short suspension to allow witnesses to join us.
11:33 Meeting suspended.11:36 On resuming—
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Jackson Carlaw
In the interests of time, we will leave that question.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you for that. It leads me to wonder about the autism services that are provided to an individual who does not have a learning disability or mental disorder. How do we ensure that a properly and sustainably funded resource is available to that group of autistic individuals?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Interests
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Jackson Carlaw
Good morning, and welcome to the fifth meeting in 2021 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee.
Under agenda item 1, I want to welcome a new committee member who is replacing Tess White. Although she was not with us for very long, I very much thank Ms White for her contribution to the committee, and I know that she will have an on-going interest in a number of the petitions in which she was involved.
We have now been joined by Alexander Stewart. Mr Stewart, do you have any interests to declare before assuming your position?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Jackson Carlaw
Item 2 is consideration of new petitions. First of all, for those who might be tuning in to see the progress of their petition or others who might be watching this morning, I should make it clear that, in advance of considering petitions, we seek submissions from the Scottish Government and receive submissions from other parties to ensure that we have a certain amount of information at our disposal before we proceed.
Our first new petition is PE1876, which has been lodged by Lucy Hunter Blackburn, Lisa Mackenzie and Kath Murray. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to require Police Scotland, the Crown Office and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service to accurately record the sex of people charged or convicted of rape or attempted rape.
In its submission, the Scottish Government states that the crime statistics that it publishes
“are derived from data held on the Criminal History System ... an operational database which is used for the primary purpose of recording of information on people accused or convicted of perpetrating a criminal act.”
The submission argues that it would therefore be
“for Police Scotland to determine how the sex of people charged or convicted of rape or attempted rape is recorded on the CHS.”
Since the publication of our meeting papers, the committee has received several written submissions, including from Fair Play For Women, Dr Shonagh Dillon, For Women Scotland, Sharon Dowey MSP and the petitioners. In their submission, the petitioners highlight that crime recording practices in Scotland are overseen by the Scottish crime recording board. The role of the board, which is chaired by the Scottish Government, is to
“support the production of accurate and objective statistics on crime in Scotland”.
The petitioners therefore reiterate that the action that they are calling for is for the Scottish Government to require Police Scotland, the Crown Office and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service to accurately record the sex of people charged or convicted of rape or attempted rape.
The petitioners also highlight in their submission guidance that the Scottish Government published last month on collecting data on sex, gender identity and trans status and which cites the investigation of “a serious sexual offence” as an example where data on biological sex is required. They argue that the fact that the chief statistician chose to single out sexual offending in this guidance lends weight to the argument that the nature and gravity of such cases justify accurate recording.
After that introduction, I seek comments from members.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Jackson Carlaw
I am going to be a bit blunt here. I was struck by the following paragraph in the Scottish Government’s submission:
“The crime of rape is committed by someone with a penis, including a surgically constructed penis. As the petition mentions, a person (male or female) can also be convicted of rape when their involvement was art and part (assisted in the perpetration of the crime).”
I note that the petitioners wonder whether, although that is technically the case, such a rape has been the subject of any subsequent prosecution. I do not think that that is entirely clear.
There are a number of people to whom we can write. I invite suggestions as to who they might be.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Jackson Carlaw
Welcome back. This morning we have our first evidence-gathering session, and I am delighted that we have with us Maree Todd, the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport. Online we have, from the Scottish Government, David Bishop, mesh team leader, and—trying to join us, although he has not yet managed to establish a link—Terry O’Kelly, senior medical adviser.
PE1865 is a continued petition that was lodged by Roseanna Clarkin, Lauren McDougall and Graham Robertson. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to suspend the use of all surgical mesh and fixation devices while a review of all surgical procedures that use polyester, polypropylene or titanium is carried out and guidelines for the surgical use of mesh are established.
At our last consideration of the petition, on 8 September, we agreed to invite the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care to give evidence at a future meeting. The Scottish Government has advised that the issues raised in the petition are within the portfolio of the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport.
Having welcomed the minister to the meeting, my first job is to invite her to make a brief opening statement before we open up the floor for questioning.
