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 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.
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Criminal Justice Committee
Substance Misuse in Prisons
Meeting date: 3 September 2025
Audrey Nicoll
It would be interesting to have a little more detail about that and to see the breakdown. That would be welcome—thank you.
Criminal Justice Committee
Substance Misuse in Prisons
Meeting date: 3 September 2025
Audrey Nicoll
That is an interesting point.
We are coming up to time. Before I invite the witnesses to make any final comments on anything that we have not covered, Sharon Dowey has a question.
Criminal Justice Committee
Substance Misuse in Prisons
Meeting date: 3 September 2025
Audrey Nicoll
I bring this evidence-taking session to a close. I thank the witnesses for attending. We have picked up a lot of very helpful details.
Next week, we will continue to take evidence as part of the inquiry and we will focus on prevention and enforcement.
12:31 Meeting continued in private until 13:00.Criminal Justice Committee
Substance Misuse in Prisons
Meeting date: 3 September 2025
Audrey Nicoll
We move on to our second panel of the morning. I am pleased to welcome Dr Craig Sayers, clinical lead for prison healthcare at NHS Forth Valley and for the national prison care network; Dr Lesley Graham, a retired public health doctor and founding member of Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems; and Dr Catriona Connell from the University of Stirling. Welcome to you all, and thank you very much for your attendance. Thank you also to those witnesses who have provided written submissions.
We are looking to spend around 80 minutes on this evidence session. I will get things going with my usual opening question. I will perhaps come to Dr Sayers first, and I will then move across to Dr Graham and Dr Connell.
We have heard a lot of evidence throughout this inquiry, and we are keenly aware that the primary focus of our evidence has been on the use of drugs in prisons. It has been less to do with the use of alcohol or some other complex issues around co-dependency, the use of alcohol and its impact, particularly in the justice system. Could you perhaps set the scene by setting out whether illicit alcohol in prisons is indeed an issue in Scotland? Is there adequate and consistent screening, and is there early identification of alcohol use disorders at admission? What support and service provision is available in prisons and, more broadly, in the community?
That is quite a big question. I will bring in Dr Sayers first to kick things off.
Criminal Justice Committee (Draft)
Substance Misuse in Prisons
Meeting date: 3 September 2025
Audrey Nicoll
We move on to our second panel of the morning. I am pleased to welcome Dr Craig Sayers, clinical lead for prison healthcare at NHS Forth Valley and for the national prison care network; Dr Lesley Graham, a retired public health doctor and founding member of Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems; and Dr Catriona Connell from the University of Stirling. Welcome to you all, and thank you very much for your attendance. Thank you also to those witnesses who have provided written submissions.
We are looking to spend around 80 minutes on this evidence session. I will get things going with my usual opening question. I will perhaps come to Dr Sayers first, and I will then move across to Dr Graham and Dr Connell.
We have heard a lot of evidence throughout this inquiry, and we are keenly aware that the primary focus of our evidence has been on the use of drugs in prisons. It has been less to do with the use of alcohol or some other complex issues around co-dependency, the use of alcohol and its impact, particularly in the justice system. Could you perhaps set the scene by setting out whether illicit alcohol in prisons is indeed an issue in Scotland? Is there adequate and consistent screening, and is there early identification of alcohol use disorders at admission? What support and service provision is available in prisons and, more broadly, in the community?
That is quite a big question. I will bring in Dr Sayers first to kick things off.
11:15Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Prevention of Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Audrey Nicoll
I will have to bring the session to a close. I thank Pam Gosal and colleagues for coming along today. We will have a short suspension to change over witnesses.
10:38 Meeting suspended.Ìý
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Criminal Justice Committee
Prevention of Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Audrey Nicoll
I will have to bring the session to a close. I thank Pam Gosal and colleagues for coming along today. We will have a short suspension to change over witnesses.
10:38 Meeting suspended.10:44&²Ô²ú²õ±è;°¿²Ô&²Ô²ú²õ±è;°ù±ð²õ³Ü³¾¾±²Ô²µâ€”&²Ô²ú²õ±è;&²Ô²ú²õ±è;
Criminal Justice Committee
Prevention of Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Audrey Nicoll
I have a final question before I bring in Liam Kerr. You said that you anticipate that an additional 3,000 domestic abuse offenders would be included in the MAPPA process. Have you taken account of the possibility that some of the individuals might, bearing in mind the existing MAPPA criteria, already be in the process by virtue of their other offending?
Criminal Justice Committee
Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Audrey Nicoll
Liam Kerr has a question, following which I will bring in Rachael Hamilton.
Criminal Justice Committee
Fatal Accident Inquiries and Deaths in Custody
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Audrey Nicoll
Our next agenda item invites us to consider three letters from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs that relate to fatal accident inquiries and deaths in custody. I refer members to paper 4.
One letter is addressed to the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, which the Criminal Justice Committee is copied into for information, about the announcement of a chair who will lead an independent review of the fatal accident inquiry system when dealing with deaths in custody.?The other two letters, which are addressed directly to the Criminal Justice Committee, relate to wider reforms around deaths in custody.
I invite members to make any comments on the letters.
As there are no comments, are members happy to note the letters’ contents, which have been published online?
Members indicated agreement.
