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 ˿ 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.
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Displaying 1264 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 8 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
Thank you very much.
I want to ask about recent press reports about Barlinnie prison in Glasgow. I think that you have already alluded to issues with the construction industry. Could you elaborate on that? Has the timetable changed again and what are the actual reasons that you are being given for the delay? I understand that the cost of raw materials is going up, but that is the case across the sector. Given that we are building one prison here, and that it is a priority, I am having difficulty in understanding what seem to be repeated delays in bringing it about.
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 8 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
Do you agree that there is an urgent need to replace Barlinnie?
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 8 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
l am only asking the panel what I already asked them. Can you give us a rough indication of the year?
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 8 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
We have been told that it is expected that the design will be complete in April next year, but we currently have no idea whatsoever about how the prison will be built. I understand that it is a big infrastructure project. Will you press the relevant people to provide an estimate of when the project can start? Am I right in thinking that, if you have a design plan at that point, you can cost it?
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 8 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
You will see them in April.
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 8 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
I take it from what you are saying to the committee that the new prison is a priority, you will see the design plans in April and then you will start to release the relevant capital to get work started. Is that fair?
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
I understand that you cannot answer that question. I suppose that I would like to think that the Government is pressing the Crown for an answer. You are coming to the committee asking us to endorse the extension, but I do not think there is any justification for the Crown asking for it. I am less sympathetic to the extension to that time limit.
Can I ask you about the letter, which I have only just seen? I understand that you are consulting on making permanent measures that would include electronic signing of documents, virtual attendance at criminal courts and national jurisdiction for callings from custody—there is a list of things that you are asking to be made permanent. We will not be able to cover this today, but can I highlight a few areas of concern? Have you discussed national jurisdiction with the legal profession, for example? That must have huge implications for where people are tried and where the lawyers have to be.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
Anyone who has ever appeared in court as a witness will probably have found it quite a traumatic experience. From what you have described, nothing is black and white, and questions can be confusing. Is there a way of drawing a distinction? To me as a layperson, there are people who have had trauma in their lives, there is the trauma of someone who is the victim in the case—the trauma that that person experienced that has to come out—and there is the court experience, which can itself be traumatic. Would you agree that there are different elements to be considered?
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
You certainly convinced me. You answered a lot of practical questions for me. That is where my line of questioning comes from—trying to apply all this to a system that, as John Watt said, is not the same, in that you all do different things.
My first question is to Laura Buchan from the Crown Office. David Fraser said that we have a court system with limited capacity to prevent what victims always complain about, which is the trauma of bumping into the person they have accused. I have had this conversation with the Lord Advocate at least once: the trauma of victims trying to find out where their cases are is a significant factor. I support all that has been said, but I am a bit concerned that we do not fix the things that are causing lots of trauma. As I said to the earlier panel, I am a layperson trying to understand that there is the trauma that people have had in their lives before they were offended against, there is the trauma of people who have been offended against and there is the trauma of what the system is doing to them. Can anything be done to make the information from the Crown easier to access?
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Pauline McNeill
What do you mean by “gateway”? In simple terms, if you are a victim of crime, or even a witness who has been called, should you not be able to call someone easily, get through and ask where your case is likely to be in the pipeline? Is that fair?
