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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Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 17 June 2021
Ash Regan
The member has mentioned a couple of countries, and, when we consider other countries, it is clear that the age of criminal responsibility means different things in different places. It often means the minimum age of prosecution or an age that provides protection from explicitly punitive sentences. In many countries, children of all ages can be subject to the various interferences of the criminal justice system, bar prosecution. I think that the member would agree that the balance needs to be right in the system, so focusing on individual international comparisons does not give due consideration to flexibility.
The Scottish Government is committed to examining that area, and I have set out a review process that the Scottish Parliament unanimously agreed when the legislation was passed, in 2019—I believe that the member was a party to that decision.
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 17 June 2021
Ash Regan
First, I commend the member for her long-standing interest and work in this area. She is quite correct in some of the points that she has just made.
As the member will acknowledge, this has been the first-ever consultation on prostitution and challenging men’s demand for purchasing sex. I invite her to work with me and the Government as we develop a model that is right for Scotland—one that recognises the lived experience of those who have been involved in prostitution, seeks to challenge men’s demand for purchasing sex and sits within our equally safe framework.
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 17 June 2021
Ash Regan
Section 78 of the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019 requires the Scottish ministers to review the operation of the act. The review is to cover the operation of the act generally, looking at, for example, whether it has achieved its objectives and whether all the provisions are operating as intended. In addition, the review is to consider raising the age of criminal responsibility further.
The act requires that the review take place in the three years following section 1 coming into force. A report will be prepared following the review, which must then be published and laid before the Scottish Parliament. In addition, the age of criminal responsibility advisory group, which the Minister for Children and Young People chairs, considers that process as part of its on-going remit.
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 17 June 2021
Ash Regan
The Scottish Government remains committed to tackling violence against women and girls, and that work continues within the framework of the equally safe strategy. We have made £18 million available in 2020-21 to tackle violence against women, and we have pledged to allocate an additional £5 million within the first 100 days of this Government to support front-line services and deal with the demand that has built up during the pandemic. The pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on women, and those who are involved in prostitution have faced increasing challenges that have put them at further risk of harm.
Last year, we took forward Scotland’s first national consultation on challenging men’s demand for prostitution, and yesterday we published the findings and the Scottish Government’s response. It sets out our commitment to develop a progressive model for Scotland to tackle this form of violence against women and a programme of work to co-design services with those who have lived experience so that support services meet their needs and, when the women are ready, help them to exit prostitution.
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Oaths and Affirmations
Meeting date: 13 May 2021
Ash Regan
took the oath.
