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 1653 contributions
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 7 December 2022
Maggie Chapman
I appreciate that.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Maggie Chapman
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us.
Ian Duddy, I follow on from Pam Duncan-Glancy’s line of questioning on staffing. How is the commission, at the moment? We have been through Covid and its impact—some of which we have talked about—and, as you outlined in your opening remarks, there has been a significant amount of organisational change, about which I have a few questions. I am interested in how the staff in your team are feeling.
I should declare that, as a member of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, I will be scrutinising the budget bid that you have put in for next year.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Maggie Chapman
Thanks for your comments, Ian. In your initial response to Pam Gosal’s question, you said that you stand by the evidence that you gave in June. During the same meeting, we also heard from the UN independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor Madrigal-Borloz. In his evidence, he was quite clear that, in the work that he has undertaken, the so-called competition of rights has come up before. He said that he has found no evidence to support that there is
“any systemic identifiable pattern of risk in ... the situation that is created by ... self-identification.”—[Official Report, Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, 21 June 2022, c27-28]
Does the SHRC agree with that view of the situation, and, from your understanding of other countries where legal recognition by self-identification works, have you heard any evidence to suggest that there can be conflict, as the letter by Reem Alsalem suggested?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Maggie Chapman
The Scottish Human Rights Commission is not the only commission that is talking about sharing services such as payroll and back-office functions.
Jim Farish, in your newish role, how do you find the balance between the strategic work that you and your fellow commissioners are asked to do and the operational side, which Ian Duddy heads up? Notwithstanding the requests for additional staff that Ian has outlined, have we got the balance right between strategy and operations?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Maggie Chapman
That is helpful. I will ask one more question, if I may. There have been discussions about having commissioners for other bits of rights. How do you view the SHRC’s role as an overarching body? How do you see that role developing?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Maggie Chapman
I will leave it there.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Maggie Chapman
That is helpful. Ian Duddy, you talked about the shift from 12.5 to 14.5 members of staff, which you described as “steady state”. Given what is coming at us all with the human rights bill, incorporation and the distinct legal and constitutional challenges around that, never mind just the human rights bit, when you say “steady state”, how much additional resource do you anticipate needing? I know that you will have started some of those conversations with staff who support you in the Parliament, but where are those conversations going?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Maggie Chapman
Thank you very much for that clarity.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Maggie Chapman
My last question for now is about the conversations that you have had in the commission, but also more broadly with the Scottish Government and other stakeholders. Are there any policies or proposals that are potentially red herrings, given the time pressures and what we know are going to be financially constrained times? Are there things that we may need to move away from doing because we know that we can get better impacts and outcomes from focusing on other things?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Maggie Chapman
I have a final brief question. Jim Skea has spoken quite a lot about social infrastructure, and I am mindful of the task relating to having meaningful engagement with those who are most likely to be affected by the just transition, so that they have the opportunity to shape it. Is there a role for the committee in doing something that the commission has not done or is not planning to do in that regard, or vice versa? There is a need for engagement, particularly with people who are not the usual suspects—those who will be affected directly but who might not have an industry voice or be able to input into the structures that we have.