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 1839 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 March 2024
Pauline McNeill
Christine Grahame is absolutely right that some of the Parliament’s procedures are not satisfactory, and this is one of those. I would have preferred other members to have had a say but, as committee members, we have to take responsibility for the process.
I agree with Russell Findlay that the process has been difficult, because we have had to come to quite a quick conclusion on a widely reported public safety issue. When we began the process, the dogs concerned were XL bully types, but we still do not know whether the dogs in some cases were XL bullies.
Christine Grahame is right to raise those points. I am slightly nervous, but I do not think that the committee has much choice. I think that there is a loophole. I suppose that the minister is saying something that may be proven right in time. There may well be a loophole but, if the founding legislation is not quite what it should be, we are building on something that might be flawed. We cannot know that now, which puts us in an unfortunate and difficult position because we have to make a decision today.
Christine made a point about scrutiny. There are some areas of the Parliament’s work that are so substantial that they are not really suitable for SSIs, but we are stuck with a process that was decided some time ago and not by us.
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 March 2024
Pauline McNeill
Good morning. You have probably answered most of the questions that I had in relation to the exemption—the issue has been well covered. I suppose that the fact that the dog owner can go on holiday for up to 30 days in a 12-month period makes sense.
As you have said, minister, the principle behind the legislation is to prohibit the breeding and selling of XL bully dogs. Is the thinking that, in time, there will be no XL bully dog owners in Scotland?
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 March 2024
Pauline McNeill
I will ask a question that was put to you last time, and which I am sure that Christine Grahame asked, too. What you have said might be the principle behind the legislation, but, given the definition, the breeders of XL bully dogs might just breed slightly smaller dogs. Will you have to reconsider how the legislation is framed at that point?
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 March 2024
Pauline McNeill
There have been some pretty horrible attacks. With regard to the one that was mentioned at the previous committee meeting, the last time that I checked, the breed of the dog had still not been identified. It might not even be possible to identify the breed. The intention is to capture a breed of dog that is seen to be more prone to attacking and to end its existence, but in some high-profile incidents, we have not established that they involved XL bully dogs. You might well give me the same answer that you have just given, but have you given any thought to that?
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 March 2024
Pauline McNeill
Does that mean that, in some cases, there is just no way of knowing? I do not know whether there are any tests that can be done—forgive my ignorance.
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 21 March 2024
Pauline McNeill
To ask the First Minister what resources the Scottish Government will be providing to Police Scotland for the investigation of complaints made under the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021. (S6F-02959)
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 21 March 2024
Pauline McNeill
The First Minister has reiterated several times that the act, which comes into force on 1 April, must deliver what Parliament intended and that people must not be criminalised for expressing their opinions. I agree. Some organisations are still concerned that the legislation will be used maliciously to silence legitimate opinion. It would be helpful for the Scottish Government to engage with those groups.
Does the First Minister agree that how the act is interpreted by the police and how the police are trained on it are key and that resources for that are crucial? Does the First Minister understand my concerns that the police are not properly resourced and, crucially, not properly and adequately trained to implement the act as it was intended? We agree that the act could risk criminalising innocent people and further stretching police resources. I ask the First Minister to make the act work and to make sure that there are full resources to ensure that what Parliament intended is delivered.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
Pauline McNeill
Funding was not in place last year in time for local authorities to decide to use the provisions relating to firework control zones. Is the minister confident that preparation is complete for this year and that local authorities such as Glasgow City Council, which needs those powers, will be more able to use them?
Meeting of the Parliament
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Pauline McNeill
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My app was not working. I would have voted yes.
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 14 March 2024
Pauline McNeill
In a letter to me about the Horizon scandal, the Lord Advocate said that
“prosecutors could not and would not have raised proceedings on the basis of the Horizon evidence alone”,
and I am aware that the Crown Office used an independent report that was prepared by the forensic accountancy firm Second Sight Investigations, which was presented to it by the Post Office as corroboration. The director of Second Sight has said that its interim report “revealed system flaws” and problems with the prosecution process. I am therefore keen to understand why the Crown Office was content to use the report as corroboration. If the Solicitor General is not able to say today why the Crown Office still proceeded to use that report as corroboration, will she at least commit to writing to me on that point?
