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 1174 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) (Scotland) Act 2012 (Post-legislative Scrutiny)
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Paul Sweeney
I want to raise concerns about poly substance use—for example, using benzodiazepines and alcohol. Have you observed a substitution effect in people who have problematic substance use generally where there is a price consideration? Do they substitute with other products that are potentially more harmful?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Paul Sweeney
The submission from the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland says that the proposals
“appear not to address issues such as training for staff”.
That is now a critical consideration for the committee, given that the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland’s response cites that the proposals lack detail on training. The response from the panel so far has been that that is an operational matter for Ayrshire and Arran NHS Board.
There has been discussion about vague ideas about starting to recruit. I understand that the opening is to be in January next year, which seems quite close. How can the committee have any confidence that the concerns that the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland raised are being addressed?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Paul Sweeney
Given that it is quite a new model, is it important to have more direct oversight of the detailed training programme, the detailed operational mobilisation for the facility, and information on where it currently stands on vacancies, recruitment and the appropriate training programmes for each person recruited, so that we can have more confidence that the concerns that were raised by pretty serious stakeholders are addressed?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Paul Sweeney
I also have a question about the ability to adjust in real time during the pilot. One of the lessons from Copenhagen was about 24-hour coverage. There are two centres within about 200m of each other. They operate for 23 hours a day and they close for an hour for cleaning. Are you concerned that there might be an issue with the opening hours, and is there an opportunity in the pilot to extend those quickly if it is deemed obvious that that is a need?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Paul Sweeney
That is helpful.
I visited the H17 facility in Copenhagen on 12 October. A key point that was raised in discussion with the people there was the strength of the co-location of services, but they also had some concerns about the direct co-location of the enhanced drug treatment service with the overdose prevention centre. Is that a potential issue for concern?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Paul Sweeney
It is easy to mix us up—I think it is the glasses. [Laughter.]
I went along to the Calton community council consultation event on 28 September. It is fair to say that it was fairly confrontational. What lessons have been learned from that exercise?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Paul Sweeney
That is helpful. One of the major concerns that was raised in the community council meeting was the role of the police. There was a lot of anger that the police had not been present—which is a fair point, because, beyond platitudes, they have not really been present at all in public discussion on the topic. Is there an appetite from Police Scotland to be more engaged, particularly with the concerns about how drug dealing will manifest itself within the local community as a result of the facility?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Paul Sweeney
In your communication plan with the local community, do you anticipate using examples from other countries or lived experience from other countries and jurisdictions that have experienced the roll-out of those facilities?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Paul Sweeney
I want to ask Rachel Cackett about her point about amendments to the bill and the likelihood of significant change at stage 2. During the previous evidence session, Unison’s regional secretary raised the need to publish the stage 2 amendments ahead of the end of stage 1 in order to have clarity and to de-risk the process. Do you agree with that?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Paul Sweeney
That is very helpful. Rob Gowans, did you want to make a final point?
