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 1256 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Pauline McNeill
Are there not human rights implications? You have told the committee that we are in danger of not complying with the requirements of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Criminal Justice Committee
Photocopying of Prisoners’ Mail
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Pauline McNeill
Same here.
Criminal Justice Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Pauline McNeill
My question is on remand accommodation and is for Teresa Medhurst. Did you say that the remand population is now at 30 per cent, whereas the previous figure was 27 per cent? I appreciate that you have to manage the prison environment according to the situation and the legislation that you are given. If 30 per cent is the figure now, and if we extend the provisions of the legislation, is it inevitable that remand prisoners will be held in more difficult conditions?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 February 2022
Pauline McNeill
Yes.
Good afternoon, minister. I hope that it goes without saying that I realise that the challenge is huge and complex. I am interested in the overdose prevention safety issue. I have hosted Nanna Gotfredsen, who is a street lawyer from Denmark who pioneered that country’s drugs policy and has been influential in the debate in Scotland.
There have been quite a few exchanges on the subject—you probably heard the comments from the UK Minister of State for Crime and Policing at yesterday’s meeting. In response to Gillian Martin’s line of questioning, the minister of state seemed to put across that he is concerned that, if the 1971 act were to be reviewed to include the ability to pilot safe consumption rooms, that would send out the wrong message. Will you respond to that?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 February 2022
Pauline McNeill
Yesterday, we heard from the United Kingdom Minister for Crime and Policing, Kit Malthouse, and a number of us had an exchange on this subject. He said that it is a very complex issue. As you know, our Lord Advocate might consider the question and she is already consulting the police and so on. Kit Malthouse asked, “If we set up an overdose prevention site in Govan, would you arrest someone who was travelling to Govan from Edinburgh?” I think that there is quite a simple answer to that, but I want to ask you, as a former chief constable.
In Glasgow, we had tolerance zones for what was then called street prostitution. It is not complex, to my mind. If you set up a zone in which you disapply the law, anyone outside that zone would be breaking the law. Is it your view that the question is too complex? I know that you support the setting up of tolerance zones. The minister who is in charge of the 1971 act says that it is really complex. I am not sure that I agree with that.
10:30Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 February 2022
Pauline McNeill
The minister of state went on to say that he thinks that there are complex questions that need to be answered if we are to legislate in that way. I recognise that, ideally, reform of the 1971 act would be the best position—for other reasons, as well.
As the minister said, provision of safe drug consumption facilities is not a magic bullet. Nothing is. However, the Lord Advocate is on the record saying that she will consider whether it might be in the public interest. It would be complex for any Lord Advocate to make a decision about whether, in the public interest, you would not prosecute under the 1971 act in certain areas if it was a public health issue and prevented deaths. My question is twofold. Do you think that those complexities can be overcome? If the Lord Advocate—who is yet to make a decision—were to make a decision in that vein, would it negate the immediate necessity to reform the 1971 act, because it would have the same effect?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 February 2022
Pauline McNeill
Thank you.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 February 2022
Pauline McNeill
Good morning, Mr Strang, and thank you for the work that you are doing.
My question continues on the law reform issue and is about the review of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and the possibility of creating safe consumption rooms to prevent deaths. You said that it is important to explain to people what we are doing in any reform. In 2018, I hosted a visit by Nanna Gotfredsen, a street lawyer from Denmark who led the charge in the Danish Parliament to change policy on safe consumption rooms. She is very much behind what is going on in Glasgow. I have researched the issue and found that there are 66 cities with such rooms where, apparently, there have been no deaths and there is no evidence of increased drug use.
Do you agree that it is important to have credible evidence on the issue so that we can make a judgment about whether safe consumption rooms are one of the tools that we can use to stop deaths?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 February 2022
Pauline McNeill
I am sorry, convener—the connection cut out for a second.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Pauline McNeill
Do you accept that the evidence so far suggests that establishing DCRs does not send out the wrong message? The evidence that I have seen shows that it does not tend to encourage further drug use.
I totally agree with you that there are questions about how the police would address the situation that you mentioned, but that could be dealt with. I suppose that the Lord Advocate—or, indeed, anyone else—would have to wrestle with a decision on what guidance would be issued in order to address that. I accept that it is complicated, but do you not agree that it could be done?
