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 378 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
Foysol Choudhury
Good morning, minister, colleagues and the team. Last week, the committee was given evidence of fuel poverty rates across Scotland. Will the move to break the link with the weather not further disadvantage some already fuel-poor areas such as in the Highlands and Islands, for example?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
Foysol Choudhury
Yes. I am good with that—thank you. When I join the meeting online, I sometimes miss a few things.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
Foysol Choudhury
When discussing theme 1, the minister talked about uprating the £50 payment. Is there any planned framework for that or—[Inaudible.]—winter heating payments? The minister talked about that when Mr Balfour asked his question. Is there any plan to uprate that payment?
10:00Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
Foysol Choudhury
I will wait for the budget report.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Benefits Independent Advocacy
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Foysol Choudhury
The committee has heard all too often that a variety of organisations do not collect data on ethnicity. That often makes it much harder to find areas in which outcomes are significant for minorities. Is there a way that data on client ethnicity can be collected sensitively by VoiceAbility for future annual reports?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Benefits Independent Advocacy
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Foysol Choudhury
Jonathan Senker.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Benefits Independent Advocacy
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Foysol Choudhury
Thank you very much.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, Social Justice and Social Security Committee: Joint Committee
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Foysol Choudhury
Good morning, minister. People from a minority ethnic background are often hit harder by cultural or community stigma and might find it harder to seek help when they need to. What can be done to address that?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, Social Justice and Social Security Committee: Joint Committee
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Foysol Choudhury
Thanks for the answer, minister. I will be happy to get involved in future.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Foysol Choudhury
Like Pam Gosal, I am a new MSP, and this is my first time speaking to an amendment, so please be kind to me.
My amendment 104 intends to ensure that there is no contradiction between the provisions in the bill and the Equality Act 2010. It is a compromise. I was advised that the best way to achieve that aim would be to insert an exception into the 2004 act—for example, in section 15 or section 16—to ensure that that legislation would have the same effect as my amendment would in Scotland. Unfortunately, that was ruled out of the scope of the bill; I should say that I do not entirely agree with that. The reasoning was that the bill is to do with the process of getting a GRC in Scotland, not what a GRC does. However, the question of what a GRC does is implicit in the bill. Why else would the question of whether a GRC legally changes one’s sex for the purposes of the 2010 act have been raised in our business at all?
When some have made it clear that their view is that a GRC changes one’s legal sex, and others have made it clear that that would render the legal protections for single-sex spaces in the 2010 act impossible to maintain, it is important to clarify that point. I hope that the minister will clarify in her response whether the Scottish Government believes that a GRC that is granted under this legislation would change one’s legal sex as well as one’s gender. My amendment seeks to clarify that point as far as is allowable within the scope of the bill, in order to ensure that nothing in the bill overrules the existing protections or definitions in the 2010 act.
I appreciate the efforts of Pam Duncan-Glancy and Rachael Hamilton to achieve that aim through similar means. However, my amendment differs in specifically adding clarity on the definitions in the 2010 act.
The EHRC briefing that was circulated to MSPs voiced its support for clarifying the relationship with sections 11 and 212 of the 2020 act, with a view to addressing cross-border complexities. It said:
“By broadening the group of trans people who will be able to obtain legal gender recognition, the proposals have significant implications for the operation of the Equality Act in Scotland.”
In short, if we do not make the matter clear in the bill, we will be inviting legal challenges to clarify contradictions that we as legislators will have created. I do not believe that that is a responsible approach to creating legislation on matters that are so important.
Recently, I held a round-table meeting with people who represented many of Scotland’s faith communities. They were unanimous in voicing their concern about the ability to maintain the single-sex spaces that are required for their religious purposes. Participants even noted that there was little support from the Scottish Government when it comes to the practicalities of implementing such law. They said that there is a sense that the rules are handed down from MSPs in ivory towers and that it is left for everyone else to deal with the consequences. In this case, the consequences will include places of worship and low-paid front-line workers having to work out how to police single-sex spaces themselves.
It cannot be right that we invite those legal contradictions and then expect religious organisations and low-paid workers, for example, to navigate the resulting legal minefield. Therefore, there must be clarity in the bill on the relationship with the 2010 act. That is why I lodged my amendment.
