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.
Criathragan Hide all filters
Displaying 1244 contributions
|
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 June 2023
Jeremy Balfour
Has the Scottish Government done any analysis of the reasons why fewer people are coming forward as trustees?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 June 2023
Jeremy Balfour
The evidence that we have taken says that there is an issue in that respect.
Minister, just for clarification, are you saying that at the moment you are not intending to have any style documents in the legislation or to add or take away any definitions in the bill?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 June 2023
Jeremy Balfour
Thank you.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 June 2023
Jeremy Balfour
Again, I want to push back on that. I think that the question about jurisdiction was answered by the SLC when it said that, if there were any question about jurisdiction, the case would come to Edinburgh sheriff court. That is clear. It might well be the case that people want to go down the Court of Session route, but I am not sure why we cannot give them the choice and trust solicitors to make that choice.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 June 2023
Jeremy Balfour
One of the key themes of the written responses to the committee’s call for views—and it was also mentioned by some of the witnesses who appeared before the committee—was the importance of the legislation being as accessible as possible to trustees and beneficiaries without legal backgrounds. Most people who do the job do so on a voluntary basis and do not have an understanding of the law.
Ideas that the committee has received to enhance accessibility include drafting changes, including improving or adding to definitions in the bill, as has already been mentioned; Government guidance; a publicity campaign; and style legal documents for the benefit of trust users. In the light of the views that have been expressed to the committee, can the minister describe the measures that the Scottish Government intends to take to maximise the accessibility of the legislation to its users?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 June 2023
Jeremy Balfour
Good morning to you, minister, and to your officials. I wonder whether I can just briefly follow up that point. I think that, in the evidence that we took, the preferred model—although it was not preferred by everybody—was that the definition would simply refer back to the 2000 act. Can you give us a wee bit more information on what would be the advantages and disadvantages, from a Scottish Government perspective, of using that particular model?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 June 2023
Jeremy Balfour
Okay, thanks.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 June 2023
Jeremy Balfour
The concern that we heard in evidence was about how to know that someone was incapable. People’s capacity can come and go, and the worry is that the decision might come down to four or five people sitting around a table who have no medical training but are concerned that an individual might not have capacity. You are asking people who have no medical knowledge or perhaps no legal background—smaller trusts might have to take legal advice—to take on a large responsibility, and concern was expressed about putting a lot of pressure on volunteers to make medical decisions.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 June 2023
Jeremy Balfour
The problem is that they need the individual’s consent to get a medical report, which might mean the trustees having to persuade the person in question, who might say that they are quite capable. If that person says no, the trustees have no power to take it further.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 June 2023
Jeremy Balfour
Okay—I will move on.
The Scottish Law Commission told us in evidence that an aggrieved trustee who wanted to challenge a decision on their capacity could use common law to go to court. You have already mentioned that, but do you think that that sort of thing should be explicit in the bill instead of just being left to common law?
