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 904 contributions
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Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Alexander Stewart
Thank you.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Alexander Stewart
Please do.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Alexander Stewart
Thank you very much. That covers my questions, convener.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Alexander Stewart
Trishna Singh, did you want to come in?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Alexander Stewart
I commend the witnesses for their the outstanding contributions this morning. The evidence session has been quite enlightening.
I want to go back to the issue of education, training and employment. You have made it quite clear that there is definitely a need to support women from ethnic minorities in building their confidence back after the pandemic. What do we need to do in the short and medium term to make that a reality? From what I am hearing today, it is quite obvious that we are failing women from that section of society.
There are many obstacles and barriers—indeed, you have talked about them already and we are aware of them from evidence that we have previously taken—but there has to be a way back for all communities. With regard to your community—the ethnic minority community—who are disadvantaged and are not progressing to what is required, what lessons can be learned to ensure that we actually go forward, not back? What I am hearing is that we are taking a backward step, confidence has been lost and individuals do not feel that they are worthy and are not able to progress into management roles or get opportunities. Perhaps we need a sea change and should try to make that happen.
Perhaps we can hear from Joy Lewis first, as she has vast experience of the sector, and then Mariam Ahmed. If others want to respond, I will be happy to hear from them.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Alexander Stewart
Thank you very much indeed for that good and in-depth answer. Mariam, do you wish to respond?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Alexander Stewart
I think that Farah Farzana wanted to come in, too.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Alexander Stewart
The Parliament has already made a decision on the matter. It was not a unanimous decision but a majority decision that there would be no voter ID. We should close the petition, because the Scottish Government has made it abundantly clear that it will not introduce voter ID. However, in closing the petition under rule 15.7 of the standing orders, it would be important for us to write to the Government about the possibility of confusion occurring if UK and Scottish elections took place on the same day. That is unlikely but, in the event that it happened, it would be useful to get a view on it. However, the decision has been made and voter ID will not be introduced, so we can close the petition.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Alexander Stewart
You talk about the miscarriage of justice, and I think that many people would identify that as the core issue. However, many would also identify the fact that, in those days gone by, the state and the church were very male dominated and women were persecuted.
There is no question about that, and you have given evidence today about the torture and interrogation that those women went through. Whether or not it was an inquisition, that type of structure—which involved the persecution of women, primarily by men, in communities—was in place in those times gone by. It is important that we identify that, because that seems to have been one of the main processes at work. Those women were disadvantaged and vulnerable, and the male-dominated state had control over their existence and whether they continued to have a life after they were put into that situation.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Alexander Stewart
I agree. We need to get that clarity, so that we understand the implications. We already had some of that from the Scottish Government, in what it is suggesting. The petitioner and his organisation also need to think about the way forward and how what they are calling for could be used. I would support trying to see whether that could be achieved.
