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 2148 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
Siobhian Brown
Absolutely. One thing that will move forward after the dust has settled on all this is reform regarding dangerous dogs. I am very keen to work with Jim Fairlie, who is the new minister with responsibility for animal welfare. He has been in his role for only a few days, but I will have a meeting with him as soon as I can to see how we can work together.
You are right. Moving forward, it will be very important that we engage with all stakeholders, including the groups that you mention.
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
Siobhian Brown
That was one of our initial concerns when the announcement was made. Jim Wilson was meeting the UK Government weekly and trying to get clarity about that. The UK Government did not come back saying “We can’t legislate in Scotland”, as such. The response in the letter that I received on 14 December 2023, which we had been requesting for months, was unclear and vague. I would not expect the UK Government to legislate for Scotland, but my not meeting UK Government ministers was not intentional for any constitutional reason; it was just because I was looking at the legislation and at what was happening in Scotland, engaging with stakeholders and Jim Wilson weekly to be kept updated.
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
Siobhian Brown
I am sorry, but it is not an excuse.
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
Siobhian Brown
Yes. Yesterday, I had discussions with Police Scotland on that specific issue. In a moment I will bring in Jim Wilson, who was also there. We are moving forward. We have set up the implementation group, which met for the first time yesterday. Police Scotland, local authorities and COSLA are all on board to see how we can implement the regulations. I understand that there are concerns about the police’s capacity for going out to see every single dog, so we will also explore how we could work with local authorities on that.
Meeting of the Parliament
Point of Order
Meeting date: 31 January 2024
Siobhian Brown
The Scottish Government supports action by Police Scotland and partner bodies to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour in the Highlands and Islands and across the whole of Scotland.
Police Scotland and local authorities have a range of options available to them to address antisocial behaviour, and I have established a working group to examine our current approach to the issue and propose improvements.
The 2024-25 Scottish budget will increase funding for policing by £92.7 million, which is an increase of 6.4 per cent. That includes a 12.5 per cent increase in capital budget, to a record figure of £1.55 billion. As of 30 September 2023, northern division in the Highlands and Islands had 668 officers, which is an increase of 44 on the figure of 624 at the same point in the previous year.
Meeting of the Parliament
Point of Order
Meeting date: 31 January 2024
Siobhian Brown
Domestic abuse is abhorrent and totally unacceptable. It is vital that perpetrators are held to account and that women and children have access to front-line services that deal with violence and domestic abuse.
We are investing record levels of funding to support victims through a range of front-line specialist services. Our victim-centred approach fund will provide £48 million to 23 organisations between 2022 and 2025, including £18.5 million for specialist advocacy support for survivors of gender-based violence.
Of the annual £19 million delivering equally safe fund, £7,719,700 is provided to Women’s Aid groups across Scotland. In addition, the Scottish Government funds the domestic abuse and forced marriage helpline to offer free confidential support.
Meeting of the Parliament
Point of Order
Meeting date: 31 January 2024
Siobhian Brown
Solicitors in all parts of Scotland are able to access funding for the work that is carried out under the legal assistance schemes. The schemes are flexible enough to allow solicitors to travel to rural and remote parts of the country to carry out work, should it not be possible to instruct a local agent.
I had a question on the topic from Beatrice Wishart last week, and I have statistics that I could write to the member with.
Meeting of the Parliament
Point of Order
Meeting date: 31 January 2024
Siobhian Brown
The Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill has been and will continue to be informed by listening to survivors, victims and their families. The bill includes provisions on special measures to protect vulnerable witnesses and parties in civil cases, recognising that domestic abuse can be raised.
Another example of our commitment to learning from lived experience is the targeted engagement that informs decisions, which is a fundamental aspect of the domestic homicide and suicide review model for Scotland. We are also working with SafeLives Scotland to explore how the expertise of people with lived experience can continue to meaningfully support the development of the model. We are committed to understanding and improving the interaction between civil and criminal courts.
In addition to the work on the domestic abuse round table, the Scottish Government is considering recommendations in the recent research on domestic abuse and child contact and the interface between criminal and civil proceedings. Workshops are being held with a range of interests to consider the issues and the improvements that are needed, and to discuss potential solutions.
Meeting of the Parliament
Point of Order
Meeting date: 31 January 2024
Siobhian Brown
As I said in my previous answer, between last year and this year, the number of officers increased by 44.
Since 2017-18, we have tripled the capital budget for policing, which has supported continued investment in police assets. Responsibility for the allocation of those resources and for the management of the police estate, including police station closures, sits with the Scottish Police Authority and the chief constable.
I agree with Deputy Chief Constable Malcolm Graham, who has stated:
“Our presence in communities is not defined by buildings but by the officers and staff who work there”.
That is an important point. We have already introduced technology that enables our officers to remain in local areas and reduces the need for them to return to police stations to deal with paperwork. In essence, we want officers to spend more time in communities, and the role of modern policing does not mean that they should be tied to a station.
Meeting of the Parliament
Point of Order
Meeting date: 31 January 2024
Siobhian Brown
I do not have that information to hand, but I will write to the member regarding that. I know that the member has a proposed domestic abuse prevention bill coming forward, and I am happy to consider innovative policy interventions that commit to do more for victims of domestic abuse.
