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 1537 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Katy Clark
That suggests that the changes would not make a significant difference. However, we simply do not know because we do not, because of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, have evidence. Is that correct? We are being asked to proceed on the basis of a guess rather than on the basis of evidence.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Katy Clark
Yes, that is right.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Katy Clark
We covered all this at stage 1.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Katy Clark
Do you agree that the problem that parliamentarians have in this area is the lack of evidence? Due to the Contempt of Court Act 1981, we do not really have any jury research in Scotland—we do not know what the split in juries is. It might be that the changes to jury size and majority would make very little difference to conviction rates, or they could make a considerable difference in specific cases.
I do not necessarily expect you to know the answer to this question, but it would be really useful if you could provide any information. With regard to other jurisdictions, are you aware of any evidence on jury splits where there is a not guilty outcome? In cases in which a unanimous decision is required but the jury cannot reach that or a supermajority, there will be a split. It might be that the split is such that there is a majority in favour of conviction but that, because of the system, that does not lead to a conviction. I appreciate that this is not your day job and that you would not necessarily look at this, but have you been able to get information on jury splits when you have been considering the issue? I suspect that the information might not be available.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Katy Clark
That is the question, really—whether we should take the decision before we have more evidence.
Meeting of the Parliament
Budget 2025-26
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Katy Clark
North Ayrshire Council has had its budgets cut by £100 million since 2010, with disproportionate cuts to local government over the past 17 years. The council is now consulting on cuts to teacher numbers, on abolishing all school crossing patrollers, and on closing libraries and the Arran outdoor education centre. Can the cabinet secretary confirm that the budget, which continues with increased ring fencing for councils, will still mean that more vital public services will be cut in the coming year, or can she give assurance that it is sufficient to address the immediate funding pressures and to start to undo the damage of the past 17 years?
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Katy Clark
What discussions has the Scottish Government had with councils that implemented firework control zones in this first year? Will the minister undertake to provide a full report to this Parliament, which spent a great deal of time scrutinising the legislation, on the operation and effectiveness of control zones and the lessons that can be learned?
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Katy Clark
To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to its cross-Government co-ordination on islands policies, what discussions the rural affairs secretary has had with ministerial colleagues regarding what more it can do to support residents and businesses on the isle of Cumbrae. (S6O-04008)
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Katy Clark
Residents on Cumbrae and groups such as the Cumbrae ferry committee and Cumbrae community council have raised their concerns about the impact of reduced visitor numbers, which have gone down 21 per cent since 2019, and issues such as higher ferry fares, which are affecting islanders, and the poor ferry service when there are events on the island. What more can be done to ensure that the local community is listened to and that policies are put together on a cross-governmental basis to ensure that those issues are addressed?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 14 November 2024
Katy Clark
As the minister knows, full-time disabled students get living costs support, but many disabled students study part time. For example, the Open University says that 28 per cent of its disabled students study part time, and part-time students do not get the same levels of support. Does the minister agree that, for reasons of equality and fairness, there is a strong case for part-time disabled students getting parity and increased access to living costs?
