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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
If you search by an individual session, the list of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ 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.
Displaying 3527 contributions
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Audrey Nicoll
My only response to that is that numbers can change day to day or week to week, so, if you are looking for that specific information, you should bear that in mind.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Audrey Nicoll
Thank you, Katy. We can have a wider discussion about that under agenda item 6.
Collette Stevenson wants to come in.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Audrey Nicoll
I am aware that that has been a gradual trend in the open prison estate’s capacity, so I would be happy to follow that up and ask for some more information.
Does any member want to make any further points on any of the correspondence?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Audrey Nicoll
I think that it was, but I have forgotten what the answer was. I will bring in Stephen Imrie, who will remember.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Audrey Nicoll
If you have specific action points in relation to any other correspondence, please flag those so that we can note them and take them away.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Audrey Nicoll
Agenda item 5 is consideration of a negative instrument, the Discontinuance of Cornton Vale Prison (Scotland) Order 2023 (SSI 2023/132). I refer members to paper 3.
Before we discuss the instrument, I thank Teresa Medhurst and her team at the Scottish Prison Service for a really interesting and informative visit to the new national women’s prison at HMP YOI Stirling earlier this week. It was good to visit the prison before it opens and learn a bit more about how it will differ from the previous facility at Cornton Vale, particularly around the more trauma-informed and person-centred environment that the women will be in when the prison opens.
The purpose of the instrument before us today is to formally discontinue the prison of Cornton Vale on 6 June 2023, which is the day that the order comes into force. The discontinuance order is the formal legal act that is required to reflect the fact that a prison has ceased to operate. Do members have any recommendations that they wish to make in relation to the instrument, which will otherwise come into force?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Audrey Nicoll
Thank you very much, minister. A lot has been covered there. We will now move straight to the questioning, which I will open.
The extent and reach of the bill’s provisions are welcome. It is good to see these much-needed changes to our legislative provision on preventing economic crime and protecting our corporate infrastructure, with particular reference to Scotland.
I want to pick up on a couple of the provisions. I think that I have got my head round the first of them, having spent a bit of time reading through the papers ahead of this meeting. It relates to the provision that will create new exemptions from the principal money-laundering offences, to reduce unnecessary reporting by businesses carrying out transactions on behalf of their customers. I assume that that is possibly where the level of compliance is a little disproportionate.
I can bring you in first to respond, minister, and then I will come to my second question, if I may.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Audrey Nicoll
A very good morning, and welcome to the Criminal Justice Committee’s 16th meeting in 2023. There are no apologies.
Our first agenda item is a decision on taking business in private. Do we agree to take in private item 8, which is consideration of our draft annual report?
Members indicated agreement.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Audrey Nicoll
Our next item of business is consideration of the legislative consent memorandum on the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill. I am pleased to welcome the Minister for Community Wealth and Public Finance, Tom Arthur, and three of his Scottish Government officials: Mr George Burgess, director, agriculture and rural economy; Mr George Dickson, team leader, defence, security and detect and disrupt; and Ms Kirsty Anderson, solicitor, directorate for legal services. I refer members to paper 1.
Before we start our questioning, I want to make members aware of one point. Late yesterday afternoon, the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee published its report on the LCM—its 32nd report of 2023. The report, which was circulated to this committee’s members as soon as it was published, makes a series of points that are mostly about the powers in the bill for a United Kingdom secretary of state to make regulations in devolved areas, with Scottish ministers’ consent. The DPLR Committee wants the Scottish Parliament to have the opportunity to scrutinise Scottish ministers’ consent decisions when such situations arise.
On that note, I invite the minister to make some opening remarks, after which we will move to questions.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Audrey Nicoll
I am really just looking for a bit more of an explanation of what the provision means.