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.
Filter your results Hide all filters
Displaying 1840 contributions
|
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 December 2023
Pauline McNeill
Good morning. I will start with Joe Duffy.
First, thank you for your evidence. You are quite convincing on the issue of whether the not proven verdict is well explained. I do not have a strong view either way on the verdict, so I am just listening to the evidence.
I turn to my first question. When the judge gives directions to the jury, they will presumably, as well as explaining the three verdicts, say, “If you’ve got any doubt in your mind, you shouldn’t convict.” Some people think that if we strip away one of the verdicts, it is more likely that we would simply get more not guilty verdicts. I wonder what you think about that.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 December 2023
Pauline McNeill
I want to establish what happens. We are all lay people here—
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 December 2023
Pauline McNeill
—so we are only going by what we understand. The judge would normally direct the jury by saying, “If you’ve got reasonable doubt”. Would you accept that?
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 6 December 2023
Pauline McNeill
At Polmont young offenders institution, education participation is a vital aspect of being in prison. A recent inspection report said that there is not sufficient participation among young offenders because they are spending too long in their cells. Can the cabinet secretary assure me that whatever education and training is offered is relevant? Is she satisfied that enough young people are participating in education and training at Polmont young offenders institution?
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?
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
Good morning. This is complicated—I will say that.
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?
