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 746 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Criminal Justice (Scottish Government Priorities)
Meeting date: 1 September 2021
Keith Brown
The first and usual caveat has to be, as Neil Rennick has said, that the courts and prosecution authorities decide on that; we do not. People get very nervous when politicians try to tell the courts what to do—other than through legislation, as we are entitled to do.
I am happy to look at that particular case and come back to Fulton MacGregor.
One problem during the pandemic—I do not know whether it relates to that case—was that cases that involved more than one person were substantially delayed because of the Covid implications of getting numbers of accused into one room. Even if the court system gave priority to certain types of case, that was sometimes limited. The situation is better now than it was, because we have more capacity. However, it may account for what has happened. In any event, I am happy to come back to Fulton MacGregor on that individual case if I have not already done so or if there is anything that I can add in the light of his questions.
Criminal Justice Committee
Criminal Justice (Scottish Government Priorities)
Meeting date: 1 September 2021
Keith Brown
I will let Neil Rennick answer that, but it is worth pointing out first that, to have carried on with some of the disposals would have been a Covid threat. I reiterate the point that the decisions that were made—not solely by me, although I imagine that I voted for them, as perhaps we all did—were made in the knowledge that we were trying to balance the different risks.
I do not know whether Neil Rennick wants to answer the specific question, although I imagine that the answer is no.
Criminal Justice Committee
Criminal Justice (Scottish Government Priorities)
Meeting date: 1 September 2021
Keith Brown
I would be happy to hear from that individual about those issues. It would be useful to get that information.
Criminal Justice Committee
Criminal Justice (Scottish Government Priorities)
Meeting date: 1 September 2021
Keith Brown
I think that we do not have information on that because, perhaps surprisingly, the funding comes from the equalities portfolio. I think that the £5 million that was to be allocated in the first 100 days has been allocated. Obviously, justice has an interest in the issue, but the allocation was handled by equalities ministers.
Criminal Justice Committee
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
Meeting date: 1 September 2021
Keith Brown
Yes, although, as I said, the former Lord Advocate expressed concerns because of the interrelationship with his functions. However, if the code of conduct is sufficient—we have had an assurance about that from the UK Government, and it will come back to us in future—and if the final version reflects what is in the draft, it should not be an issue for us.
Criminal Justice Committee
Criminal Justice (Scottish Government Priorities)
Meeting date: 1 September 2021
Keith Brown
On what we are doing, the committee did an investigation into that in 2018. Since then, we have put another £117 million into community justice services each year, plus a further £550,000 to incentivise bail supervision services—bail obviously being the flip side of remand. We have also put in another £1.5 million for bail support for women each year.
I reiterate the important point that this is not just about legislation. I think—I imagine that the committee will know this better than I do—that there is also cultural adaptation, as well the legislation, that we have to consider.
