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 629 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 3 November 2021
Pauline McNeill
To ask the Scottish Government when it plans to introduce a system of nationwide rent controls. (S6O-00314)
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 3 November 2021
Pauline McNeill
A quarter of cases in the sheriff court are domestic abuse cases. The main barrier to victims of domestic abuse taking their abusers to court is the cost of, and access to, a lawyer who specialises in domestic abuse. Has the minister had, or will he have, discussions with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans about how access to legal aid can be improved to ensure that women can access a lawyer who specialises in domestic abuse?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Legal Aid Solicitors (Action)
Meeting date: 3 November 2021
Pauline McNeill
I acknowledge that some progress has been made since 2019, but does the minister accept that we have reached a crisis point in the legal aid profession? We are losing experienced lawyers from the profession, and unfortunately the situation will be exacerbated by the huge backlog in cases, long hours, poor pay and a group of lawyers who feel badly let down and badly treated compared to other Government lawyers. Does the minister agree that there is a desperate need to resolve the situation once and for all?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
General Question Time
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Pauline McNeill
2.
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports of people being “spiked by injection” or having their drinks spiked in nightclubs across Scotland. (S6O-00294)
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
General Question Time
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Pauline McNeill
I sincerely thank the cabinet secretary for that response. Drink spiking puts victims in a situation in which they are vulnerable to being sexually assaulted, raped, robbed or accidentally injuring themselves. A spokesperson for the girls night in campaign has said that
“spiking has become an epidemic.”
They went on to say:
“Never before have we heard of so many students waking up with no memory of what had happened the night before”.
I have written to Police Scotland to get some detail on the numbers.
As the cabinet secretary said, it is important to work in collaboration with the Night Time Industries Association to find a way forward, including use of testing strips and anything else that will give women confidence and keep them safe.
Finally, does the cabinet secretary agree that the phenomenon is, unfortunately, part of a broader picture of increasing prevalence of violence against women, which we as a society need to tackle with some urgency?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Pauline McNeill
To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government anticipates the impact of the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—will be on Glasgow’s healthcare services. (S6F-00378)
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Pauline McNeill
Like the First Minister, I recognise the hard work that has been done by our health services. However, I had hoped that she might share my concern about what was said in a paper for Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board this week, namely that
“no specific provision has been made for additional inpatient capacity”
during COP26.
I would have hoped that the First Minister would know that COP26 is not really comparable to the G7 summit. At COP, there will be about 14,000 delegates a day and the march by activists on 6 November has been licensed for up to 100,000 people. It is obvious that, given that Covid cases are high and hospitals are already overwhelmed, there is likely to be an increase in in-patient numbers. In light of that, can the First Minister tell me today or at some other time what will be the receiving hospital for COP26? Will that hospital have additional capacity?
The First Minster has a constituency interest in the matter. I hope that she can tell me that there will be safe and guaranteed routes to accident and emergency departments not just for ambulances but for the general public who will need to attend A and E during COP26. I hope that she can give me whatever assurance that she can that she will be mindful of the need to constantly ensure that safe routes to A and E and to our hospitals are provided.
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Pauline McNeill
In the most recent Scottish Government figures—for 2020-21—cybercrime accounted for an estimated one in three sexual crimes. In the past decade, the levels of most types of crime have fallen, but sexual crimes have risen by 78 per cent. Will the cabinet secretary set out the measures that the Scottish Government is planning to protect vulnerable people—especially women and girls—from the increasing risk of cybercrime of a sexual nature?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 5 October 2021
Pauline McNeill
I sincerely welcome the cabinet secretary’s comments at the weekend when he said that women should be included as a protected group in the hate crime legislation. That would send a very important signal that such behaviours by men are not acceptable in society.
I appreciate that the cabinet secretary was not the justice secretary when the legislation was passed, earlier this year, but the Scottish Government chose not to accept an amendment that would have included women specifically in the legislation. The cabinet secretary clearly agrees that it is obvious that misogyny should have been included in the hate crime legislation in the first place. Does he think that it is time to act now, instead of waiting until next year for the findings of the working group on misogyny?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Autumn and Winter Vaccination Programme
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Pauline McNeill
I am at a loss to understand why the JCVI does not consider police officers as a priority group. Given the incredible efforts that Police Scotland and serving police officers will make in policing COP26—the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—with up to 25,000 people attending, which will expose officers to considerable risks, does the Government plan to ask the JCVI to include police officers as a priority for the vaccine booster, which they should be?
