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 2062 contributions
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Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 June 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
In the bill, it is set out that there will be regulations on the form and on the information that the registrar general will be able to collect. You have already touched on that—and I will come back to the issue of young people in a moment, if the convener allows it—but would you be prepared to publish the regulations for the registrar general ahead of the bill being finished at stage 2?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 June 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Thank you. My final question on this topic is about the prison service. We have briefly spoken about that and, notwithstanding the comments on the numbers involved, which are small, is it your view that, following the review of Scottish Prison Service guidance, a gender recognition certificate would not be considered as a kind of passport as it has been in other areas of the UK, and that the approach would remain risk based, both to the trans person and to the other people who are living in prison at the time? Would a risk-based approach still take precedence over the relevance of a GRC?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 June 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
I am concerned that the instruments will increase the cost of accessing justice by 2 per cent in July and a further 2 per cent next April, at a time when disabled people are facing extreme cost of living increases. Some evidence that was submitted to the consultation on the increases highlighted that the exemptions and disregards for some income, including for disabled people, are not sufficient to ensure access to justice and protect against poverty. Therefore, I am concerned about the increases and note the concerns of organisations including Inclusion Scotland and Citizens Advice Scotland.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 June 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
I will follow a line of questioning that we heard from a number of witnesses, including JustRight Scotland, indicating concerns about people who reside in Scotland but who are not citizens of Scotland. Is it your intention that the bill will cover those people?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Low Income and Debt Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
I want to take us back to the questions on digital inclusion. Forgive me for—[Inaudible.] Do you believe that anyone who needs support to access debt advice online, particularly those on low incomes, will have that support?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Low Income and Debt Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Thank you, that is helpful.
During the pandemic, mobile phone companies were able to offer people access to NHS websites without their having to use data. That meant that it was effectively free for people to access those sites. Has the Government considered asking mobile phone companies whether they would do the same thing for debt advice?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Low Income and Debt Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Do you expect the implementation of a three-year funding cycle to be imminent?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Resource Spending Review
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Thank you, but forgive me, cabinet secretary, my question was not specifically about the support that the Government has given unpaid carers—although I have a number of questions about that, some of which I raised in the chamber yesterday. My question was about the length of time that the cabinet secretary for finance said that it would take to reach the groups of people to whom the resource that came from the Barnett consequentials would have been better targeted. It was not so much about the support that the Government has given to unpaid carers, but about why it would take nine months to reach those four groups, when we already know where they are. The question is why the process takes so long.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Resource Spending Review
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Perhaps the committee and the cabinet secretaries can have a future discussion about how long it takes to deploy money in circumstances such as the cost of living crisis.
As we all know, more and more people are falling into poverty and the cost of living crisis is growing. Will the cabinet secretaries set out how the Government is using funds to challenge the causes, rather than the symptoms, of poverty? I appreciate that both cabinet secretaries began by setting out their aspirations to reduce the number of people who are eligible for payments such as the Scottish child payment. Will you explain how your spending plans will support people to stay out of poverty in the long term and ensure that any social security costs pertaining to that remain manageable?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Low Income and Debt Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Yes, I have questions on public debt, so I will move on to those. We have already spoken about the difference between the collection of public debt and private debt, particularly in relation to council tax. The Poverty Alliance noted that the situation is extremely complicated and it is difficult for people to understand their right to access council tax reduction, particularly when they slip in and out of having to pay that on the basis of their income. Would the Government support the proposal for local authorities to write out to people to make explicit their entitlement to a council tax reduction and also to write back to them when there are changes to that, so that people do not inadvertently fall into public sector debt?
