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 1066 contributions
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
David Torrance
I have one more question for you, Mr Watters. The families we spoke to did not feel that the police would respond to any threats to their children on social media. Can you elaborate on what Police Scotland would do if such threats were constantly being aimed at a child?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
David Torrance
No, it was not. I was very tempted, convener. [Laughter.]
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
David Torrance
I wonder whether the committee would consider writing to the Scottish Government once again to ask when it expects to publish the outcomes of the consultation on effective community engagement and local development planning guidance; to seek an update on the work to explore the scope for planning authorities to determine more applications for onshore windfarm developments, including the impact that onshore wind sector deals for Scotland has had on that work; and to highlight the petitioner’s continuing concerns about the lack of professional support that is available to assist members of the public contributing to public inquiries.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
David Torrance
Could the committee write to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills to request a timeline for the development and publication of the joint action plan on relationships and behaviour in schools, and information about how the Scottish Government expects its call for accurate recording of incidents in schools to be achieved?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
David Torrance
I wonder whether the committee would consider closing the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders on the basis that: regulations to provide an uplift of 10.2 per cent to all legal fees were approved by Parliament in March 2023; £3 million has been announced to strengthen access to justice for deprived communities and vulnerable groups; and neither ministers nor SLAB can compel solicitors to provide advice or representation.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
David Torrance
I wonder whether the committee would consider writing to NatureScot to ask for an updated view on concerns that it raised in 2018 about wildlife disturbance by drones; to ask how many complaints about drone use have been investigated since then and whether any of those were referred to Police Scotland; and to ask whether it would consider creating a byelaw prohibiting the use of drones on national nature reserves without a permit under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
I also wonder whether—this is probably key, convener—we could write to Police Scotland to ask whether there have been any prosecutions for wildlife crimes in Scotland related to drone use and, if so, how many, and how many police investigations into suspected wildlife crimes arising from drone use have taken place each year since 2018, and how many investigations have been reported to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service each year since 2018.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
David Torrance
Could the committee close the petition under rule 15.7 of the standing orders on the basis that bodies that undertake road works are already required to consider the needs of pedestrians and must agree appropriate alternative provision with the roads authority before works take place, as set out in “Safety at Street Works and Road Works: A Code of Practice”?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2024
David Torrance
I wonder whether the committee would consider keeping the petition open and writing to the Minister for Transport once the fair fares review has been published, to seek details on any recommendations relate to the ask of the petition.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2024
David Torrance
I wonder whether the committee would consider keeping the petition open and writing to the Scottish Government to ask whether it intends to carry out work relating to the issues that are raised in the petition and on whether it will undertake work to raise awareness about public rights to access different types of land and the law of trespass in Scotland.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2024
David Torrance
The UK National Screening Committee is going to—