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 1131 contributions
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 January 2023
Rona Mackay
Do you want any changes to be made to the current exemptions? Should those exceptions be strengthened, or are you happy that they are in place?
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 January 2023
Rona Mackay
I go back to a point that Professor McNeill made at the start of the session, about gravity of risk. If I understood him correctly, he said that he did not believe that the bill is for serious or solemn offences per se. If that is the case, does the fact that there is only one public safety test for all offences not send out the wrong message—for example, to victims? Should the current exceptions on domestic abuse and sexual offences not still stand? Could I have his opinion on the specific nature of individual risk and public safety in relation to the bill?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Rona Mackay
That is very reassuring.
We have also heard from witnesses that the status quo is not an option. Pretty much across the board, people realise that they want something to be done. I am very reassured that you have been listening to people with lived experience, and I am sure that other stakeholders will be similarly reassured.
Are you confident that, if local authorities put pressure on you not to include justice social work in the bill and that pressure is mainly based on local authorities’ financial fears, you can answer those concerns?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Rona Mackay
There are two aspects to the bill. If we leave aside the constitutional question, the first issue is that the bill is, I believe, a very bad one. It shuts the door on justice for people who are looking for justice for what happened decades ago in Northern Ireland. The bill is in no one’s interest—its premise is very bad.
Constitutionally, it is a no-brainer. For example, the response from the Lord Advocate states:
“The Bill, in its current form, engages a number of areas over which I have constitutional responsibility and does so in a manner novel to Scots criminal law.”
Therefore, the bill would represent new ground and not good new ground, so I strongly recommend that we do not consent to the LCM.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Rona Mackay
Good morning, minister. This morning’s session has been very reassuring on a number of counts. We have heard from witnesses who do not want to think that the service is being rushed through without their having a chance to be listened to or to be part of the co-design. From what you have said to my colleague Russell Findlay about the timescale, you are giving that time.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Rona Mackay
Thank you, convener. This is for Gillian. It is a brief question about the pilot in South Lanarkshire that she mentioned.
Will you elaborate on the similarities between what you are doing and what the bill proposes to do? How successful has the pilot been? Has it finished? If not, how long has it got to run? What have the cost implications been for you so far? I think that you said that you could not possibly roll it out permanently. It would be good to get an idea of the level of that.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Rona Mackay
That is really helpful.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Rona Mackay
Going back to the issue of women in custody, which is an area on which I am particularly focused, I have what I know is a very broad question for Suzanne, Sharon and Keith. Nevertheless, I am interested in hearing their responses to it.
Do you think that the bill will bring about the necessary changes? As has been said, most women who are on remand or in custody should not be anywhere near prison, and it would be a fantastic outcome if the bill were to facilitate keeping them out of it. Do you think that there is a possibility, albeit with the necessary resources and interagency management, of the bill helping to keep women out of custody or remand?
Suzanne, could you answer that first, please?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Rona Mackay
That is really helpful. Lynne, would you like to provide some input?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Rona Mackay
If multiple agencies were inputting information, would there be implications for how long it would take to get a decision made?