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 756 contributions
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Roddick
I completely appreciate the points about mental health impacts and support. We are working with a Glasgow-based mental wellbeing project to better support people who are facing such challenges.
On third sector funding, as I said in my opening statement, we have provided more than £2 million from the two funding streams that Maggie Chapman mentioned. Much of the funding from the ending destitution together strategy goes to the British Red Cross to provide crisis grants to people who are at risk of destitution. However, we have to be sure that they are close to destitution due to NRPF, not having a right to work and having difficulty getting appropriate housing.
It is very difficult to continue to fund at such levels to mitigate failures in the UK Government’s immigration system, given that that is not something that we are able to change. However, we have a duty to try to make things better around the edges. I would much prefer to make big changes to the rights and entitlements of asylum seekers by saying that we will remove NRPF and give people the right to work. Given that we cannot do that, we are left to provide crisis grants and other support through different means.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Roddick
Certainly. The Scottish Parliament passed the act unanimously in 2015, which shows the strength of feeling across all parties about doing more to support victims of human trafficking.
Police Scotland continues to work closely with partners in the UK and beyond to share intelligence and co-ordinate work. We are bringing in as much knowledge and expertise as we can so that we are able to approach that work as widely and effectively as possible. However, we are very concerned that, should the bill pass in its current form, we would be severely limited in our ability to identify then support victims, because they would have the extra burden of not being able to come forward and explain their situation, given the potential for their removal from the UK.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Roddick
It is temporary, in that most Ukrainians who are living in Scotland would consider any place in which they are currently living to be temporary, but it is not temporary accommodation in the way that hotels and vessels are.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Roddick
I do not have the exact number to hand. To give a bit of context, I point out that the number is currently changing every day because the disembarkation of the MS Victoria is getting to the final stages; every single day, a significant number of Ukrainians are moving off the ship.
I do not know whether my officials have our most up-to-date figures on that.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Roddick
As ESOL has been integrated with the adult learning strategy, it is delivered by colleges, but in partnership with community planning partnerships to ensure that there is local engagement and local tailoring.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Roddick
What I said was that asylum dispersal funding should meet all the services that require to be provided by the Scottish Government or local authorities, so—
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Roddick
I am speaking about the impact on services of having asylum seekers in a particular area. That comes with specific needs that come under reserved matters, but it also impacts on devolved services. Asylum dispersal funding must ensure that it is meeting the extra cost and service provision needed.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Roddick
I hope that you understand the reason why resources are pushed towards asylum seekers. In international law, no distinction is made, but there is a distinction for rights and entitlements in the UK. The difficulty is that people are being forced into destitution and that is where the limited money has to go. However, it is important to pick up on such points as we develop the refreshed new Scots strategy.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Roddick
We have managed to collect extensive data on where Ukrainians are moving to from the ship and where people are going and why. It is a lot easier to do that when they are all based on board the ship at first, with all the support services around them. Those statistics are being collected, and we have gained quite good insight for future planning in terms of how many want to go to Ukraine in the near future and how many are thinking much further ahead or want to leave Ukraine permanently altogether.
I am sorry—I have forgotten your second question.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Roddick
I point out that the supersponsor status for Ukraine is unique, so there is not parity because the Scottish Government does not have that formal role in respect of other immigration routes. We would, if we had the powers that we have been asking for to enable us to set our own controls over immigration and our own rights and entitlements for those who are seeking asylum or for refugees—but we do not.
The many successes of the Ukraine supersponsor scheme—including the support that has been offered to people who have arrived here under it and the partnership working with COSLA, local authorities and third sector partners—demonstrate what can be done if we take the approach of treating people with dignity and respect, allowing them the right to work and making sure that varied types of accommodation are available to them, based on their needs. We saw the working between local authorities—council representatives from across Scotland came on to the ship to speak to people living there about what was on offer in their area. That is a great demonstration of what can be done if we take the human rights-based approach.