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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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 8 June 2022
Paul Sweeney
The discussion has been really worth our while, in that it has focused on what the effects need to be. We need a check and balance on health boards and providers to ensure that, where necessary, there is correction, through inquiry into people’s experiences by giving them a proper formal voice and through the ability to put obligations on providers. In that sense, the petitioners’ requests are significant and require further advocacy by the committee.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 8 June 2022
Paul Sweeney
The testimony that we have heard has been compelling. The democratic deficit in decision making on health boards, and the tension between the tendency for the medical profession to want to centralise in national centres and build capacity, and the rights of rural patients to access services, have been borne out in discussions that we have had on a number of petitions.
I will ask the petitioners about defining the rights of patients regardless of where they are. Perhaps the advocacy body that has been proposed would be the best way of defining the right of a patient to access services safely, whether in gynaecology or any other context. Examples such as William Sinclair described in relation to Caithness could be identified through data, study and inquiry as unsafe provision. That would mean that the health board would have an obligation to address the situation. The advocacy body could place on the health board an obligation to deal with it.
An alternative to that might be to say that, in instances in which it is appropriate to travel to Glasgow for an operation—in neurosurgery, for example—the patient has the right to have their travel costs covered and the right to accommodation for a companion for the duration of their period of surgery and recovery.
Those are mechanisms by which the rights of patients could be defined and advocated for, so maybe they are the ones by which those rights could be delivered. A national body in which stakeholders from different geographies can come together and define the standards that all citizens should be entitled to in different contexts, and one that can take evidence from clinicians and patients is, perhaps, what we are all driving toward. Would petitioners agree that that is where we need to arrive?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Paul Sweeney
In closing the petition, we could perhaps advise the petitioner to maintain a correspondence with his local members of the Scottish Parliament in order to ensure that he receives a satisfactory outcome from his discussions with Transport Scotland. If there are any concerns, they can be taken up accordingly, rather than it being done through the petitions process.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Paul Sweeney
The committee has heard concerns that HIAL management places too much faith in “Air Traffic Management 2030 Strategy: Scoping Study”, which was produced by the consultant Helios, and the results of which relied significantly on emerging new technology. How do you respond to those concerns?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petition
Meeting date: 12 May 2022
Paul Sweeney
Thank you very much for taking part in our inquiry into the use of surgical mesh, Dr Spencer Netto. Chronic post-operative pain is clearly a substantial issue for many hernia repair patients, regardless of the type of repair that has been undertaken. What causes such pain?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petition
Meeting date: 12 May 2022
Paul Sweeney
That is helpful.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petition
Meeting date: 12 May 2022
Paul Sweeney
Thank you for that overview. Systematic reviews comparing mesh and non-mesh repairs have found that post-operative complications, including the chronic pain that you define, are generally lower for mesh repairs. Why does the Shouldice hospital’s written submission indicate an alternative view of the evidence? Can you explain why its written submission varies from the systematic reviews?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petition
Meeting date: 12 May 2022
Paul Sweeney
Thank you for that insight.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petition
Meeting date: 12 May 2022
Paul Sweeney
In a previous evidence session, Dr Terry O’Kelly, a senior medical adviser to the Scottish Government, advised us that the Shouldice technique
“will not be applicable to non-inguinal hernias; it might also not be appropriate for patients with larger defects, or for very degenerative tissues.”—[Official Report, Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, 6 October 2021; c 21.]
Do you agree with Dr O’Kelly’s assessment?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 May 2022
Paul Sweeney
Welcome to the committee, Mr Avery, and thanks for the submission on behalf of your members in HIAL. How confident are you that the arrangements for the development of a new air traffic control strategy will produce results that are acceptable to your members in HIAL?
10:00