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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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Are there any other suggestions or comments from colleagues?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Our next petition, PE1859, was lodged by Barry Blyther, who is in the public gallery this morning. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020 to allow mountain hares to be hunted for the purposes of falconry.
Members will recall the evidence sessions that we had in December last year with the petitioner, the Minister for Environment and Land Reform and NatureScot. I should also include Stanley, the eagle, in that, because we put questions to Stanley directly. [Laughter.] We heard about a number of issues in relation to the petition, and there are some outstanding issues and questions for us to consider, all of which have been summarised in our papers.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Jackson Carlaw
You are looking at me as if I ought to be an authority on these matters. Although Mr Ewing and I might be at the older end of the lifespans that are represented on the committee, I must say that I am not an expert on that subject. No doubt others might be able to tell us more.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Jackson Carlaw
No, it is helpful to tease this out.
10:00Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Jackson Carlaw
The confirmation of the position in NHS Grampian was disappointing, I have to say; in progressing the petition, we should give proper emphasis to that.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Jackson Carlaw
On which analogy, I will ask whether members are content with the action that has been suggested?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Jackson Carlaw
It would be helpful to draft a letter that we could consider before we send it off. I suggest that we ask the clerks to produce a draft letter.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Jackson Carlaw
The second of our new petitions, PE1975, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review and amend the law to prevent the use of strategic lawsuits against public participation—SLAPPs. The petition has been lodged by Roger Mullin, who joins us in the public gallery and is a former member of an alternative elective legislative body that sits elsewhere in the United Kingdom. I welcome him to the gallery.
The SPICe briefing explains that SLAPPs is a term to describe court action taken by rich and powerful interests with the intention of silencing critical views. Court action can include defamation and data protection claims. The briefing highlights the Justice Committee’s stage 1 scrutiny of what is now the Defamation and Malicious Publication (Scotland) Act 2021. That committee noted a proposal to create an unjustified threats court action and recommended that the Scottish Government consider the issue further. Currently, both the UK Government and the European Commission are working to strengthen legislation in order to tackle SLAPPs.
The Scottish Government’s response to the petition states that it does not intend to undertake a review of SLAPPs, adding that the 2021 act “goes some way towards” addressing concerns.
The petitioner, Roger Mullin, has provided a written response, stating that there has been a lack of recognition of the scale of the problem. He raises concerns about the potential for “defamation tourism” if Scotland does not keep legislative pace with England, Wales and the EU.
We have also received written submissions from our colleague Michelle Thomson MSP, the anti-SLAPP research hub at the University of Aberdeen, and Ekklesia, all of which support the petition. The written submissions echo Roger Mullin’s concerns and raise some additional issues, such as the importance of investigative journalism and the impact of frivolous litigation on the court system. Ekklesia’s submission highlights the model anti-SLAPP law drafted by the UK anti-SLAPP coalition and its key features, and it urges the Scottish Government to enact similar measures.
It is an interesting petition and there is an interesting variation in how the matters are being pursued. Do members have any comments or suggestions for action?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Jackson Carlaw
We can explore the most appropriate way for the further suggestion that Rhoda Grant made to be accommodated, whether that is through the committee or some other means. Are we otherwise content to proceed on the basis that we have discussed?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Jackson Carlaw
PE1918, which was lodged by Kate Freedman, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to reform sex education by updating guidance on implementing clear teaching rules that focus on topics such as menstruation and related illnesses; puberty; LGBT sex, including asexuality; fertility; pornography; and any other things that are deemed useful.
The Scottish Government has outlined the ways in which the views of children and young people are used to influence policy in the area, including collaboration and co-design in classrooms. Its recent submission provides examples of local engagement seeking the views of children and young people on sex education. It also states that the Scottish Government is in the process of revising its relationships, sexual health and parenthood—RSHP—teaching guidance and that it will run a public consultation to gather views. As part of that, it is exploring the best approach to gathering the views of children and young people. The submission concludes by stating that the Government is working to have the revised guidance available as early as possible in the 2023-24 academic year.
Do members have any comments or suggestions for action?
