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 1119 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Rona Mackay
I appreciate many of the points that have been made, but I fear that we are going down a rabbit hole in talking about why existing legislation is not being used and prejudging whether the bill will be used. It is new legislation. The police and the courts are in favour of it. There is absolutely no reason for a review to be in the bill because the bill would be a fresh start and has the support of the courts and police. It is not necessary to put a review in the bill.
Criminal Justice Committee
Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Rona Mackay
To be honest, I have a lot of sympathy with amendment 67, which seeks to amend the age limit, but there could be unintended consequences. It could push more people into buying by proxy for 20-year-olds, for example, and it would risk widening a black market. However, I will be interested to hear what the minister has to say on it.
Criminal Justice Committee
Online Child Abuse, Grooming and Exploitation
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Rona Mackay
If your counsellors hear something alarming—I am sure that they will; it would all be alarming, in my estimation—and believe that someone is having dangerous thoughts, what do you do then, given that you allow them to remain anonymous?
Criminal Justice Committee
Policing and Mental Health
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Rona Mackay
Thank you very much.
Criminal Justice Committee
Online Child Abuse, Grooming and Exploitation
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Rona Mackay
I have a question for Stuart Allardyce. I am interested to know how you can prevent someone from being an online child abuser. When someone is referred to you, or when you hear from someone—however it is that contact is established—what form does your intervention take? Do you give them counselling? I am interested to know what your organisation does. You mentioned that some people had been arrested. At what point does that kick in?
Criminal Justice Committee
Online Child Abuse, Grooming and Exploitation
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Rona Mackay
Were those calls and emails from people referring themselves?
Criminal Justice Committee
Online Child Abuse, Grooming and Exploitation
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Rona Mackay
Are you talking about a one-off phone call, or is there on-going dialogue with people who call up?
Criminal Justice Committee
Online Child Abuse, Grooming and Exploitation
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Rona Mackay
Stuart Allardyce, how do you measure your service’s success rate?
Criminal Justice Committee
Policing and Mental Health
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Rona Mackay
Following ACC Hawkins’s comments about the changing nature of policing over the years, I have a question for David Hamilton. Has the training for police officers kept up with the massive changes that have happened over the years? Do they get adequate training on what they should expect, how to recognise people who have mental health difficulties and—the other side of the coin—how those situations might affect them and their own mental health?
Criminal Justice Committee
Proposed Bail and Release from Custody Bill
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Rona Mackay
I agree with everything that the deputy convener and Pauline McNeill have said. Could we also raise the issue of interaction between the Scottish Prison Service and the Wise Group and other throughcare services? When we asked whether there is much co-operation, there was quite a negative answer. Sometimes, offenders had to search for information from the Prison Service. It might be good to highlight that issue to try to get more co-ordination, because such groups provide a fantastic service.
