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 613 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Domestic Violence and Violence Against Women and Girls
Meeting date: 3 March 2022
Emma Roddick
I will direct this first question to Mariam Ahmed. We heard a lot from the previous panel about intersectionality in relation to BAME women and disabled women being more at risk, and we know that parents and transgender males are more likely to experience sexual assault. How important is intersectionality as a consideration in addressing misogyny and sexual crimes? How closely linked are misogyny and other prejudices?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Domestic Violence and Violence Against Women and Girls
Meeting date: 3 March 2022
Emma Roddick
Yes, thank you so much, Mariam. That was great.
I will move on to prevention now, and this question is aimed at Carolyn Fox MacKay. I notice in the Girlguiding Scotland written response that
“37 per cent of girls aged 13-25 said that they knew another girl their age who had experienced rape or sexual assault.”
To me, that is already unacceptably high, but it still seems low given how large we know the issue to be. Whether knowingly or not, everyone probably knows someone who has experienced rape or sexual assault. Do you feel that lack of awareness of what constitutes sexual assault or what constitutes consent, as well as unwillingness to call rape and sexual assault what they, is suppressing that figure and playing a part in making the number seem smaller, particularly for those of a young age who are pressured to engage in sexual relationships? How important for prevention work is it to overcome that suppression?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Emma Roddick
I have one more question, which is for Hassan Darasi. In the previous session, we spoke a lot about the effects of NRPF on women in particular. Are other groups of people, in particular those who share protected characteristics, disproportionately impacted by the policy?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Emma Roddick
Good morning, everyone. My question is for Lidia Dancu; it is an extension of what she said earlier.
We know that migrant women are much more likely to be subject to domestic abuse, yet the NRPF policy prevents them from accessing support services. Given the high levels of destitution among those women, do you agree that supporting them needs to be the priority in ending destitution? In your view, who is best placed to provide that support? When someone has NRPF status, does that make them even more vulnerable to further abuse?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Emma Roddick
This question is for Phil Arnold, and it follows on from the questions asked by Pam Duncan-Glancy earlier. On the distribution of the crisis grant, have you learned any lessons that might be helpful to the Scottish Government or to local authorities when considering any future changes to the likes of the welfare fund in providing support for refugees and asylum seekers?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Meeting date: 3 February 2022
Emma Roddick
This question is for Alistair Dinnie. How does the Scottish Government’s approach in the new Scots refugee integration strategy differ from the UK’s approach towards asylum seekers and refugees?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Meeting date: 3 February 2022
Emma Roddick
I will group the questions that I was going to ask later for the sake of time. I am not sure whether Calum Maciver is here, but if not, I will ask Susan Aitken. The Scottish Government guidance makes it clear that people seeking asylum can and should be entered on to social landlords’ lists if they apply for social housing, even though they are not entitled to the housing until they are granted refugee status. Is there anything more that can be done to encourage people to get on the list early and to widen social landlord awareness of that guidance?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Meeting date: 3 February 2022
Emma Roddick
Thanks, convener.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Meeting date: 3 February 2022
Emma Roddick
On the legislative consent motion that has been lodged this week, Scotland has established age assessment practices that are carried out by trained social work professionals in line with the getting it right for every child approach. What is your view on the UK Government’s proposals on reforming age assessment processes? I will put that question to others, as we are looking for a UK vision.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 20 January 2022
Emma Roddick
Which DLA claimants are being moved first?
