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 1502 contributions
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 19 September 2024
Kaukab Stewart
I thank Jeremy Balfour for highlighting the concerns of disabled people’s organisations, which I acknowledge. I also thank him for sharing my commitment to pursuing equality for disabled people and his offer of further engagement on a cross-party basis, which I accept. I encourage members from across parties to contact my office so that we can make that happen.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Kaukab Stewart
The report highlighted the fact that many service users received an excellent service, although some were significantly let down by Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre.
I have lost track of the question, I am afraid. [Interruption.]
As I stated in my previous answers, the Government’s role was in funding. Through that legitimate route, we will continue to work with Inspiring Scotland to make sure that all the conditions are met.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Kaukab Stewart
Women’s safety is paramount for the Scottish Government, and we continue to fund Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre to support survivors of rape and sexual assault, as we do rape crisis centres across the country, because such funding is needed for the vital work to support survivors. The Scottish Government can discontinue funding if those funds are not used in line with the conditions of the grant being met.
Vicky Ling’s report highlights the positive impact of the services that Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre provides to a significant number of survivors who have used the services. Our fund manager, Inspiring Scotland, will continue to work with ERCC’s board as it implements the necessary changes that are recommended by Vicky Ling’s report.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Kaukab Stewart
It is not for us, as the Scottish Government, to comment on individual organisations’ employment and retention processes. The board of Rape Crisis Scotland is responsible for decisions about the employment of its staff.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Kaukab Stewart
The needs and safety of survivors of rape and sexual assault must be the utmost priority of support services. As the report makes clear, it is totally unacceptable that survivors were let down by a core failure of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre to deliver services to national service standards. The report highlights important areas where action is needed to ensure that survivors can confidently continue to access support from Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre. I welcome the intention of the centre’s board to implement all the recommendations.
The employment decisions of ERCC are a matter for its board, and I cannot comment on individual cases. I hope that the board and the interim chief executive who is now in place can be given the space to continue to rebuild the service and confidence in it.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Kaukab Stewart
Rape Crisis Scotland continues to provide a service. Mr Choudhury is correct in saying that no external referrals are being taken, but women can self-refer.
I reiterate that violence against women is a fundamental violation of human rights and is totally unacceptable. We must root that out and tackle the toxic masculinity and gender inequality that lead to violent harassment, misogyny and abuse against women. We should stand against it and call it out when we see it.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Kaukab Stewart
I am very sympathetic to the needs of survivors, and I believe that they should have their needs put before anything else. I think that I have stated that quite clearly.
I remind the Parliament that the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill was not, in fact, enacted.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Kaukab Stewart
The Scottish Government strongly supports the separate and single-sex exemptions in the Equality Act 2010, which allow trans people to be excluded when that is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. It is service providers’ responsibility to interpret and comply with the 2010 act.
We would expect the wishes of survivors about the sex of their support worker to be followed. I am pleased that the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre board has publicly stated that single-sex provision has been reintroduced at the centre.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 12 September 2024
Kaukab Stewart
The Scottish Government’s population strategy, which was published in 2021, includes a more balanced work strand that focuses on ensuring that our population is sustainably distributed. That work strand recognises the pressures of both population growth and depopulation.
Last year, our ministerial population task force considered exploratory research to expand our evidence base with regard to the drivers and challenges of population growth, the findings of which will inform future policy development.
We continue to work closely with local authorities. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities are members of the population programme board and jointly chair the local government population round table.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 12 September 2024
Kaukab Stewart
Work is on-going. We take the issue very seriously and our population programme considers the challenges of population growth, as I mentioned. It has been a key consideration for the population round table, which, as I said, is jointly chaired by the Scottish Government, COSLA and representatives from all local authorities. I would be happy to meet Mr Briggs to discuss the issues that he raises in more detail.
The ministerial task force will continue to consider taking appropriate steps to address those challenges, in collaboration with key partners such as local authorities.