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 1445 contributions
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Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Civil Legal Aid Inquiry
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Tess White
Yes—in cases of huge environmental vandalism, when people feel completely disempowered. It is a David and Goliath situation, and there is nowhere for them to go for justice.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Civil Legal Aid Inquiry
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Tess White
Our committee can try to pull some data from somewhere.
I have a final question about remote and rural areas. You touched on the thirst that is not being quenched in the desert, and the race in remote and rural areas for a solicitor. If I understand the issue correctly, the abuser is often first to get the solicitor. Are there any other challenges in that respect? You have talked about the number of solicitors who are coming to that position. Is that the only way to solve that huge issue?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Civil Legal Aid Inquiry
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Tess White
That is helpful. Thank you.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Civil Legal Aid Inquiry
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Tess White
I have a follow-up question for Dr Christman. You talk about the Aarhus convention, and I wonder whether that would apply to this case. As you are aware, the committee recently scrutinised the Aarhus convention and I raised the issue of the considerable barriers for community action groups in opposing new energy transmission infrastructure. There is rarely equality—there is huge inequality—for groups that want to challenge what they see as the environmental vandalism that they are experiencing. The Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland was of the view that the Scottish Government was in breach of the Aarhus convention. You have touched on regulation 15 of the 2002 regulations and access to justice on environmental issues. Could the quick fix that you are talking about relate to that issue?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Civil Legal Aid Inquiry
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Tess White
Dr Scott, you have talked about the model, so I will give you the opportunity to share your views with us, initially through a rural and remote lens.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Civil Legal Aid Inquiry
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Tess White
On the issue of data, do you have figures for the number of women who are trying to access legal aid in rural areas following domestic abuse?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Civil Legal Aid Inquiry
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Tess White
What are the figures, roughly?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Civil Legal Aid Inquiry
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Tess White
It has already been asked.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Tess White
My questions have been asked, Presiding Officer.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Tess White
The independent regulator should report directly to the Lord President, definitely not the Scottish Government.
It is to the minister’s credit that ministers’ powers to intervene were removed at stage 2, following calls from the legal sector and the Scottish Conservatives. At stage 3, our overriding concern is that the bill fails to decouple the complex complaints process from the system of self-regulation by the professional bodies. That was a recommendation of the Roberton review, as well as the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee at stage 1.
I note comments from the SLCC’s Consumer Panel. It said:
“We are concerned ... that most of the attention and concessions in the debate so far have been given to the views of the legal profession, while there has been limited engagement with the views of consumers or consumer groups.”
The reality is that, for consumers of legal services, it is not always clear where self-regulation ends and self-interest takes over. The view among consumers is that it feels like David against Goliath.
The complaints process is overly complex, impossible to navigate and glacially slow. At stage 2, I lodged probing amendments that proposed using the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission’s existing infrastructure to investigate all conduct and service complaints.
My key point is that the bill merely tinkers with the status quo. The changes do not go far enough, which is why the Scottish Conservatives will vote against the bill later today.
17:37