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 ˿ and committees will automatically update to show only the ˿ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ˿ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ˿ 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 2015 contributions
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 19 December 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Yes, of course. I am sorry. Given some of the concerns that people have raised, would it be helpful for the Government to issue guidance on that area?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 19 December 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Okay—thank you. When you were forming your view of the proposed legislation in the way that you set out in the letter to the cabinet secretary, what consideration did you give to international examples that already have self-ID systems, and what evidence have you taken specifically on those?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
For the people who get the £50, that is £1 a week against the rising energy costs. I genuinely share concerns that that is a “finger in a dam”, but I am sure that they will appreciate the pound.
You noted that weather stations do not reflect everywhere in Scotland. I share that concern, and you will be aware that, last week, so did witnesses. What other weather-related options did you consider? Did you look at absolute temperature? You said that it would be “administratively burdensome”. Will you set out the conversations that you have had with the Met Office?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
In the interests of brevity, I will leave it there.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
I accept the technical detail that the minister has set out, which states that there is a mechanism. I accept that there is a mechanism. I do not believe, on the basis of what I have seen since I have been in this place, which is from May 2021, that such commitments have ever come to fruition, so I will wait and see, and I hope that the mechanisms that are in the regulations will be used to support people who live in Glasgow.
I take the point about the average weather in the city over the past 10 years, but I share the concerns about how the data is collected and the weather stations from which it is collected. I was making the point that we have an opportunity to change the whole way in which we do things in Scotland. The offer in front of the people of Scotland is insufficient and it will leave thousands of families freezing this winter.
Convener, I will abstain on the motion for all those reasons.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Will the member take an intervention on that point?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
As we discussed, the rate is £50, and, at the current rate of heating costs, that would probably heat a house for six days, as I said. Will you set out why specifically it is £50? In line with costs, the payment should be £125. What do you say about that to people who are struggling with their bills?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
First, I am not sure whether the minister has been outside in Glasgow in the past few days. We are heading for a very cold period. We will wait and see what happens with the weather.
Regardless of that, it is important to make clear that you are offering people in Glasgow—36 per cent of whom live in fuel poverty—£1 a week. The Scottish Government had an opportunity to redesign a fuel payment—a winter heating allowance—that could have a genuine impact on fuel poverty. I do not think that anyone who looks at its offer will think that it has achieved that. I do not think that they will accept that.
10:45Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Do you think that £1 a week is sufficient to address that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
Pam Duncan-Glancy
On that basis, do you support my Westminster colleagues’ argument that we should have a proper windfall tax, with no loopholes, on those energy companies?