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 1264 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
I apologise if my questions do not make sense, but I will try my best.
When you explained the mock trials in your answer to the convener, you talked about the way that mock juries view a not proven verdict against a not guilty verdict. You said that, in cases in which the juries would say, “We just do not think the evidence is there,” they would select not proven. When we are looking at the issue, it is important to frame it in the context that, as well as explaining the differences between the verdicts, the judge will give direction to the jury.
Is it fair to say that the presence of reasonable doubt is key? The jury will be told, “When there is reasonable doubt, you should not convict.” If you work back from that, is it fair to say that, if a juror had doubts about conviction, either way, the verdict that they would give would not be guilty? Is it fair to say that that context is quite important?
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
I want to examine a paragraph on page 6 of our paper 1. It says:
“In respect of the changes to the majority required for conviction, we say in the Criminal Law Review article that ‘the Scottish Jury Research [found] that jurors were more likely to favour conviction in a system of two verdicts than when the not proven verdict was available.’”
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
I will just read it out. The paragraph continues:
“Given proposals elsewhere in the Bill to abolish not proven and reduce jury size, without parallel reform to the jury majority requirement, this would have seen the Government proposing the combination of variables identified as most proconviction in that research ... The policy choice [made by the Government in the Bill] was a difficult one.”
The next part of the paragraph is where, for me, the complexity lies. It says:
“Raising the majority required to, say, ten out of twelve would run the risk that other reforms targeted, at least in part, at the low conviction rate in sexual offence cases may be thwarted.”
The cabinet secretary, Angela Constance, has said that the reforms are not targeted specifically at the low conviction rate.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
But the important point is that we have three verdicts and a simple majority, is it not? The reason for allowing a simple majority is that we currently have three verdicts.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
I have a final quick question on corroboration, which Eamon Keane mentioned. There has been a bit of discussion about the retention of the requirement for corroboration. Would you have further concerns if we removed that requirement under the current proposals in the bill, which would mean having a qualified majority and two verdicts?
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
It is not. It is just that some witnesses, and people with an interest, have said that they have had discussions with the Government about their views on corroboration. There has also been recent commentary from the judiciary. Who knows where we will end up on that? I just point out that there has been talk.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
Which is?
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
It says that it “may be thwarted.” The Government may have started off there, but it is clear to us now that that is not the Government’s intention. More importantly, you say in the article:
“But the proposal for eight out of twelve might be criticised for creating an unacceptable risk of wrongful conviction.”
That is what I want to ask you about. Do you have concerns about the jury numbers?
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
I am not disagreeing.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
I am just trying to get my head around the point that you are uncomfortable with a simple majority, but you acknowledge that the reason for having a simple majority is that we have three verdicts.
Just finally, in England, is it 10 out of 12 jurors?
