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 1618 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018: Post-legislative Scrutiny
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Katy Clark
That is helpful—thank you.
Criminal Justice Committee
Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018: Post-legislative Scrutiny
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Katy Clark
So the existence of the new offences should not have made a significant difference to the numbers of people being remanded.
Criminal Justice Committee
Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018: Post-legislative Scrutiny
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Katy Clark
Has your marking of cases for appeal changed?
Criminal Justice Committee
Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018: Post-legislative Scrutiny
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Katy Clark
You cannot even go that far.
You will be aware that the committee is currently looking at new bail proposals. Has there been a change in practice as a result of the 2018 legislation? Can you outline whether it has had an impact on bail in relation to domestic abuse specifically? We are aware of the section 23 provisions, but has there been an increase in the use of remand in domestic abuse cases as a result of the various new offences being brought in?
Criminal Justice Committee
Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018: Post-legislative Scrutiny
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Katy Clark
The next panel might be better placed to answer this question. I have been looking through the papers to see whether I can get the information that I am looking for. I am interested in the extent to which you have been able to get information on conviction rates in relation to coercive control, and on the difficulty in securing convictions. At the beginning of the evidence session, there was a lot of discussion about police interpretation and guidelines, and whether we have case law to evaluate how well the courts can decide such cases.
Maybe Claire Houghton is best placed to answer that. I know that you have done some research, Claire, but I do not know to what extent you looked at that and how many cases you had to consider.
Meeting of the Parliament
Women’s and Girls’ Safety (Public Transport)
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Katy Clark
The minister has outlined fully the problems. In 2000, Sarah Boyack MSP, who was then the Minister for Transport and the Environment, undertook a similar survey on personal safety for women on transport, and research and guidance were agreed. Was that guidance used when the ScotRail tender was prepared, for example?
Meeting of the Parliament
Women’s and Girls’ Safety (Public Transport)
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Katy Clark
I might expand on the point later in my contribution. As I said when I intervened on the minister, there have been previous consultations. As I said, the most recent work was agreed to as a result of the debate on booking office closures, and the railway unions were campaigning against those closures. The voices of trade unions and—as I am sure that the minister will agree—of women trade union members, in particular, need to be heard on these matters.
Meeting of the Parliament
Women’s and Girls’ Safety (Public Transport)
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Katy Clark
Campaigners have suggested that the British Transport Police presence should be increased at stations. Would the member support that?
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Katy Clark
Does the minister accept that the scale of the disruption that is being faced by islanders is a direct result of the Scottish Government’s failure to adequately invest in new ferries since taking office? Bar the overdue ferries that are being built at Ferguson Marine, there still does not seem to be a strategy. In total, CMAL has examined 650 second-hand ships, most of which were found to be unsuitable. Will the Scottish Government commit to developing a long-term strategy to build capacity so that we can build and commission vessels here in Scotland?
Meeting of the Parliament
Women’s and Girls’ Safety (Public Transport)
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Katy Clark
Thank you, Presiding Officer. I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests. I am pleased to close the debate for Scottish Labour and to get the opportunity to thank the minister for bringing this important issue to the chamber.
The commitment to carry out research was made last year in a Labour Opposition debate on booking-office closures, so we are disappointed that the trade unions were not approached to take part in the consultation. I very much hope that they will be directly involved in such initiatives in the future.
There is no doubt that this is an important issue and that there is an urgent need to ensure that women and girls feel safer on public transport and at stops and stations.
