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 łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of łÉČËżěĘÖ 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 914 contributions
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 1 December 2021
Bill Kidd
I have seen what the Scottish Government has said that its intention is, how it is approaching the matter and to whom it has spoken about it. Even so, it would not do any harm for us to write to the Scottish Government to ask for a review of the effectiveness of the current financial support that is offered to ensure that all occupiers have the capacity to meet the regulatory requirements and be kept safe. I think that there is still some confusion among the general public, and it would not do us any harm to do that.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 1 December 2021
Bill Kidd
It may do no harm to raise the question of whether falcons and other birds of prey can differentiate—obviously, they cannot—between hunt species and ask what the petitioner’s response is to that question.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 30 November 2021
Bill Kidd
I actually agree with what has been said. I understand that, if you are to introduce legislation, particularly if members of the public are going to comply with it on a daily basis, you have to try to make it straightforward and avoid the possibility of the rules being broken. It is important that we raise the issue with the COVID-19 Recovery Committee and ask it to consider the matter. After it has done so and we have heard what it has said, we can consider the instrument again next week.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Bill Kidd
I have known people who have gone through the whole process. I believe that the 20m rule is a degrading and inhumane approach, particularly when it is repeated on more than one occasion. That rule should not be there in the first place. I would be perfectly happy to continue the petition and look for further routes to try to achieve elements of what the petitioner is seeking.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Bill Kidd
I go back to what my colleague David Torrance said: we should ask the Scottish Government to speak directly to the petitioner to find out where the problems are in order to address them.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Bill Kidd
I remember what Paul Sweeney was talking about. In order to avoid the mild embarrassment that might take place if Alasdair Aardvark gets elected in front of the rest of us, we should look at that.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Bill Kidd
Yes, we did. I do not know that we can do much more, other than write to the Scottish Government to ask where we stand in relation to aid for those families who require it. I know that the issue has been talked about and is being worked out, but we need to know where we are now. That is important to find out for many families.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Bill Kidd
I think that we should close it with that action in place. We cannot do any more than that, but we should take that step.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Bill Kidd
I am aware that the petition is about people, particularly those with autism, who do not have a learning disability. The Scottish Government has already stated that it will publish a learning disability, autism and neurodiversity bill in order to create a commissioner role that will look into the range of autistic circumstances, and I think that that pretty well covers the matters that the petition relates to.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Bill Kidd
Sadly, the issue that the petition deals with is of the moment and has been for quite some time. It is important that the committee continues its work on the matter—I was going to say “continues its pursuit”, but that seemed a bit strong. We need to keep the issue in the public domain and the Scottish Government’s eyes fixed firmly on it until it can be resolved.