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 3582 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
You have made the point, minister. We have limited time and I do not need to you repeat points.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Is that really practical in the context of upland falconry with a golden eagle?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
It is a challenge that you really did not give any consideration to during the passage of the legislation because you did not give any thought whatsoever to taking evidence from people who would have been able to give an opinion.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
That is not an excuse for poor legislation.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
I think that the witness suggested that, if a falcon went out every day and hunted one mountain hare only, we would get to the figure of 1,000. However, on the law of probabilities, that is not very high. We have just had all your colleagues here say to us that it would be very unlikely that there would be a prosecution, because an accidental hare being hunted would be such a rare event.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
But you would accept that 1,000 hares, in the scenario that we have described, compared with the 26,000 to 38,000 that would be shot, is a small number.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
PE1909, on removing the “gender-based crime” domestic abuse narrative and making it gender neutral and equal, was lodged by William Wright. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to make domestic abuse policies, guidance, agendas and practices gender neutral; to introduce equal domestic abuse provision and funding for everyone in Scotland, regardless of any protected characteristic; and to ensure that all domestic abuse joint protocol guidance, policies and practice for Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Prosecutor Fiscal Service are gender neutral.
At our previous consideration of the petition, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish Government, Police Scotland, the ManKind Initiative, the Paul Lavelle Foundation and Men’s Aid Ireland. The Minister for Equalities and Older People has advised that the Scottish Government is engaging and consulting on a national strategy on ending intimate and sexual violence against men and boys. She thanks the petitioner for his interest in this area of work, and notes
“the importance of developing this strategy, which will be complementary to the Equally Safe Strategy which addresses violence against women and girls.”
The ManKind Initiative says that a fully gender-informed approach should be taken to domestic abuse, and that framing it as a gender-based crime leads to unequal outcomes for male and LGBT+ victims.
Police Scotland states:
“There is no variance in the current training provided to officers on how to support victims of domestic abuse based on the victims’ specific gender.”
It outlines Abused Men in Scotland’s work on Police Scotland’s domestic abuse forum, which informs the police’s strategic direction in relation to domestic abuse. Police Scotland also reiterates that the definition of domestic abuse does not distinguish victims or perpetrators on the basis of sex or gender.
William Wright has provided us with further information about his experiences as a male victim of domestic abuse. He says that statistics on crimes committed against men contradict the view that men in Scotland have privilege that enables them to oppress others.
In view of everything that we have heard and the response from the Government and agencies that are now seeking to reach out and take the issue seriously, do colleagues have any reflections on how to proceed?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Are we agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Yes—I think that I saw some engagement from the gallery there, so I suspect that the petitioners will be able to assist us on one or two of those issues, if the clerks wish to liaise further with them.
We are interested in taking forward the issues that the petition raises, and we have identified a fairly comprehensive range of agencies and individuals from whom we will seek further evidence that we can consider in due course. Are members content with that?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
PE1970, which was lodged by Sharon Fairley on behalf of the Scottish Private Nurseries Association, is on the creation of an online account for parents to manage the 1,140 hours of early learning and childcare funding. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to reform the funding model for the 1,140 hours of early years learning and childcare to allow parents to have direct control of childcare funding via an online account.
The Scottish Parliament information centre briefing highlights:
“The Funding Follows the Child approach is intended to be ‘provider neutral’”,
which allows
“families ... to choose their preferred ELC setting”.
It notes:
“Submissions to the Education, Children and Young People Committee ... argued that some PVI providers’ funding from local authorities was not meeting the full cost of the place.”
The Scottish Government states in its submission that it consulted on the delivery of ELC and received
“some support for ELC accounts”,
but it notes that the limitations were a
“lack of certainty for private providers and local authorities; and risk of parents using funds for other things.”
The submission also notes that investment and time would be required to deliver a new system.
11:00The National Day Nurseries Association has written to the committee and has stated its support for the action called for in the petition. It highlights discrepancies in funding between local authority ELC and other providers, and it argues that a childcare passport would provide parents with choice, flexibility and affordability. It notes that
“it is difficult for local authorities to be both funder and provider”.
Do colleagues have any comments to make or suggestions for action?
