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 1156 contributions
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Karen Adam
We move on to questions from Marie McNair.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Karen Adam
We have heard much praise for Contact Scotland BSL and how it has been a lifeline for BSL users, and, to an extent, life changing for them. However, although, overall, Contact Scotland has made quite a significant improvement in the lives of BSL users, we have also heard some evidence this morning on some issues with it with regard to quality and the appropriateness of interpreters in different situations, and we have also heard concerns about threats to its continuation. What can the Scottish Government do to ensure the service stays and is possibly improved?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Karen Adam
We are getting short of time now, but we still have a couple of members who would like to ask some questions. We go first to Pam Gosal.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Karen Adam
Thank you, Deputy First Minister. We will now move to questions, and I will start us off.
We have heard from witnesses that the BSL act has improved visibility and awareness of BSL in Scotland. We have even heard praise for the fact that Scotland has been a leader in this area, by recognising BSL as an official language, and praise for the engagement that there has been with the BSL community, but there has also been some criticism with regard to the delivery of services, capacity building and the lack of interpreters and teachers of BSL. What do you think are the positive impacts of the BSL act, and what have been the main challenges in delivery of the aims?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Karen Adam
Stacey, as someone who uses Contact Scotland BSL in your service delivery, do you feel that it has changed the services that you provide? How has it improved things for BSL users, if it has?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Karen Adam
Thank you. We move on to questions from Paul O’Kane.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Karen Adam
We move on to a question from Evelyn Tweed.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Karen Adam
Our next agenda item is consideration of a type 1 consent notification for the Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Act 2020. I refer members to paper 3. The Minister for Victims and Community Safety wrote to the committee on 27 May to give notice of the Scottish Government’s proposal to consent to the UK statutory instrument. The UK Government intends to lay the instrument on 1 September 2025.
Do members wish to make any comments on the Scottish Government’s notification?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Karen Adam
Thank you. Before I bring this session to a close, I ask the witnesses whether they have been able to express everything that they wished to. Would you like to add anything else?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Karen Adam
That is great. Thank you all once again very much for joining us. That brings our evidence session to a close. We will suspend briefly for a changeover of witnesses.
10:02 Meeting suspended.