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 ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ 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 1174 contributions
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Paul Sweeney
We have covered a lot of ground, but we still have a great deal to cover, so, if the witnesses are amenable, I am minded to extend the evidence session by 15 minutes, to 11 am.
We have not yet covered an issue that was brought up in a previous evidence session, which was a concern that information distributed to people accessing abortion clinics by those engaged in activities covered by the bill is not always factually accurate—I am thinking of, for example, the medical consequences of the procedure. Do any of the witnesses have a view on ensuring that clinically accurate—and not necessarily sensationalist or alarmist—material is distributed?
10:30Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Paul Sweeney
We resume our scrutiny of the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Bill. Our second evidence session will explore human rights considerations. I welcome to the meeting Eilidh Dickson, who is the policy and international officer at the Scottish Human Rights Commission and is attending virtually. All other witnesses are here in person. I welcome the Rev Stephen Allison, who is the public engagement co-ordinator for the Free Church of Scotland, Rob Gowans, who is the policy and public affairs manager for the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland, known as the ALLIANCE, and Dr Catriona McMillan, who is former convener of the health and medical law sub-committee of the Law Society of Scotland.
We will move straight to questions from members and I invite Ivan McKee to start.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Paul Sweeney
I thank our witnesses for attending. Are there any other points that you wish to raise that you do not think we have covered so far in the evidence sessions? No, everyone seems content to stop there. If there are any further items that you want to correspond with us on, you are more than welcome to do so. There has already been some discussion about some items of correspondence that we will follow up on. I reiterate our thanks for taking the time today to come to the committee and help us scrutinise this legislation.
At our next meeting, on 19 March, we will conclude our evidence taking in our stage 1 scrutiny of the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Bill. We will hear from the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health and then from the member in charge of the bill, Gillian Mackay MSP. That concludes the public part of our meeting today. Thank you.
12:28 Meeting continued in private until 13:01.Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Paul Sweeney
Thank you.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Paul Sweeney
We have 10 seconds left. Dr Gulhane has a very quick supplementary.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Paul Sweeney
That is an interesting point. Are there practical scenarios to consider? Do you see, for example, hospital chaplains potentially being impacted by the legislation?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Paul Sweeney
The Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee is considering petition PE2049, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce buffer zones outside migrant accommodation to protect occupants from demonstrations by anti-migrant groups. Although it noted that there were a number of issues to be dealt with, the Scottish Government has committed to looking into the feasibility of that proposal, so that is another case that might be worth considering.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Paul Sweeney
Thank you very much, Alina. I now invite Isabel to address the committee.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Paul Sweeney
Ross, I should just advise that Isabel Vaughan-Spruce and Dr Pickering would like to come in, too.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Paul Sweeney
We are right out of time. I really appreciate that the witnesses have stayed longer. It was a worthwhile exercise. If there is any additional information that you would like to share with us in relation to our scrutiny of the bill, please write to us.
I suspend the meeting briefly to allow for a changeover of witnesses.
11:02 Meeting suspended.