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
Under our second agenda item, we have the final evidence sessions of our inquiry into the British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015. In the inquiry, the committee is exploring whether the BSL act, the current BSL plan and the listed authority plans are improving the lives of BSL users, and what changes could be made in the shorter and longer term to further improve things. I refer members to papers 1 and 2, and I welcome the first of two panels of witnesses.
We are joined in the room by Professor Annelies Kusters, professor of sociolinguistics, and Dr Robert Adam, associate professor in languages and intercultural studies, who are both from Heriot-Watt University. Joining us online from NHS Forth Valley are Stacey Gourlay, who is the disability liaison officer, and Rachel Tardito, who is the equality, diversity and wellbeing lead. Good morning—you are all very welcome to the committee.
We have just under an hour and a half for the discussion. We have not scheduled any breaks, but please indicate to me or the clerks if a break would be helpful. We move straight to questions and I will start us off. What are the positive impacts of the BSL act, and what are the main challenges in meeting its aims?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Karen Adam
Are members content to take on board Maggie Chapman’s suggestion and ask for more detail?
Members indicated agreement.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Karen Adam
Thank you. We will write to the Scottish Government and we will take on board Maggie Chapman’s suggestion.
That concludes our business in public. We will move into private session to discuss the remaining items on our agenda. Thank you.
11:24 Meeting continued in private until 12:09.Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Karen Adam
Thank you. That is helpful. We will certainly take note of that.
I again thank everyone for their evidence today. We will now have a brief suspension to allow for a changeover of witnesses.
10:47 Meeting suspended.Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Karen Adam
Thank you.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Karen Adam
Thank you. As you say that, I am aware that if there was a classroom assistant who could use BSL to talk to a deaf child in a mainstream school, that child would still only be talking to an adult in the classroom. What difference would it make to a deaf child if other pupils in the class—their peers—could communicate with them in BSL?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Karen Adam
Thank you for that.
Hannah, what do you see as the positives and the challenges of the BSL legislation?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Karen Adam
I welcome our second panel of witnesses today: Professor Jemina Napier, who is chair of intercultural communication, Heriot-Watt University; Lucy Clark, who is a deaf domestic abuse researcher, advocate and trainer; and Rachel O’Neill, who is from the Moray house school of education and sport, University of Edinburgh. You are all welcome. As with the first panel, we have not scheduled a break, but please indicate to me or the clerks if you would like a short break.
I say in BSL, good morning and welcome to the Scottish Parliament and the equalities committee. It is good to see you.
I will start off by asking questions. We heard from the first panel about a lot the positives of the British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015 but also some of the challenges with it. I will come to you first, Lucy Clark. What is your opinion on the positives of the BSL act and what challenges have you seen?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Karen Adam
That is great. What are the challenges with implementing some of the actions related to the BSL act?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Karen Adam
That is okay, thank you. Alana Harper, what are the positive impacts of the act, and what are the main challenges?