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 MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs 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 824 contributions
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Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Scottish Human Rights Commission
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Pam Gosal (West Scotland) (Con)
Good morning. Thank you for your opening statements and for all the information that you have provided so far.
I want to move on from my colleague Paul O’Kane’s questions. The state of the nation report provides an assessment of how civil and political rights are met in Scotland. In fact, the commission found that human rights failings occur across Scotland, specifically in places of detention and across rural communities. Extensive barriers were also reported in justice, which you have mentioned—you have talked about the monitoring. How has that report been received? What feeling do you get that the Scottish Government and public authorities are going to address those failings? You have mentioned the monitoring, but will they address those failings?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Scottish Human Rights Commission
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Pam Gosal
Thank you. I have a supplementary, and then I will ask one more question.
Even to this day, women are still at a disadvantage compared with men, and that is especially true of women in custody. Two years ago, a male double rapist was briefly put into a women’s prison simply because he had claimed that he was a woman. That put many vulnerable women at risk. Do you recognise the importance of single-sex spaces and services, especially when it comes to vulnerable women such as women in custody or in rape crisis centres?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Scottish Human Rights Commission
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Pam Gosal
You will be happy to hear that this is my last question. What more can MSPs do to ensure that the Parliament is effective as a human rights guarantor? Earlier, you mentioned some of the monitoring stuff that you want to do. Would there be any benefit in your doing further work with members and committees? What planning should be in place to prepare for the next parliamentary session?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Scottish Human Rights Commission
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Pam Gosal
I would like to ask one more question. You mentioned the rights of women, the rights of people with a disability and the rights of people from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. The committee has heard evidence that it is sometimes challenging to reach out to and engage with certain communities, especially ethnic minority communities. Have you had any problems in that regard? You said that you did some work in that area. What gaps did you notice? What more can we—or you—do to reach out to those communities?
As someone who comes from a BAME background, I know that there are certain things that I would find it difficult to do—whether in a job or anything else—not only as a woman, but as a member of an ethnic minority living in a different culture. There are some things that you would probably take for granted that you do every day, but which I would find difficult because of the cultural aspect surrounding that. Could you shed a bit of light on that?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Scottish Human Rights Commission
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Pam Gosal
Thank you. Angela O’Hagan, you said that you spoke to the First Minister. You may not want to divulge what was said, but were your recommendations and your considerations well received? As you say, it is good that there was a debate on the report, but was it received well?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Scottish Human Rights Commission
Meeting date: 14 January 2025
Pam Gosal
Jan, do you have anything to add?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Post-legislative Scrutiny
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Pam Gosal (West Scotland) (Con)
Good morning. The Female Genital Mutilation (Protection and Guidance) (Scotland) Act 2020 received royal assent in April 2020. However, almost five years later, it has yet to be implemented.
FGM is an abhorrent practice. There are an estimated 24,000 people living in Scotland who were born in countries where FGM happens. In 2022, I asked the then Minister for Equalities and Older People:
“Has there been more of a focus on collecting that data to accurately identify communities and spaces where this horrific practice might be taking place?”
The minister responded:
“The FGM guidance has been delayed as a result of difficult decisions that had to be taken at that time, but we are now re-establishing that work.”—[Official Report, 22 March 2022; c 18, 19.]
Every day of delay is a day too long.
The act strengthens the legal protection for women and girls at risk of FGM. Minister, as the pandemic is now over, why has there not been any progress? You just mentioned that the act could be implemented in 2026—given that we are at the end of 2024, that is another one to two years. There still is no guarantee that the act will be implemented. Minister, can you shed any more light on that?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Post-legislative Scrutiny
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Pam Gosal
I want to put on record that, in my original question, after I described the consultation process as rushed, I said straight away that it takes the appropriate amount of time. I know that you made that point.
I agree that consultation is very important to allow people to have their say. Committees are also important, as we can scrutinise and take evidence. My question was not about there being an issue with consultation. I am saying that the process is resource intensive—sometimes organisations are one-man bands or have only five people. I was asking what you would say to organisations when there is not a result at the end of the process and they have done all that hard work.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Post-legislative Scrutiny
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Pam Gosal
I wait to hear feedback next year on how the acts have been implemented.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Post-legislative Scrutiny
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Pam Gosal
I just want to echo how important the implementation of the legislation is and that there are women and girls out there who are suffering. Minister, I am really hoping—and will hold you to your word—that the act will be implemented in 2026, as you mentioned, because people out there are suffering right now, especially women and girls.
