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 łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of łÉČËżěĘÖ 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 1195 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health Inequalities
Meeting date: 21 June 2022
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
With respect, alcohol consumption fell among those who were not deprived, but we saw alcohol consumption rise among people who have an alcohol problem and among the most vulnerable people. A report by Public Health Scotland found no clear evidence of a reduction in alcohol consumption among people drinking at harmful levels following the implementation of minimum unit pricing. However, you are absolutely right to say that there has been a collapse of recovery services, which is key. We have also found that those who are drinking have just switched what they drink, as I said in my first question.
The United Kingdom Government has increased tax on the basis of the alcohol level, so tax is increased on spirits and there are lower tax rates for drinks that are weaker in their alcohol content—those that are 3.5 per cent alcohol, for example—and for low and no-alcohol drinks. Should we be promoting low and no-alcohol drinks? Should we introduce a system that looks not just at pricing? In terms of health inequalities, our approach to alcohol is a huge area that does not seem to be quite working.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health Inequalities
Meeting date: 21 June 2022
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Dr Cawston, you said earlier that there is a standard amount of money going into general practice. Was I mistaken in thinking that, initially, GPs who worked in areas of high deprivation actually got more funding but that, following the introduction of the new GP contract, although there is an element of the funding allocation that concerns deprivation, more money is going to the care of those who are elderly and living with complex needs, which has reduced the money that is going into areas of deprivation?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health Inequalities
Meeting date: 14 June 2022
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
My question relates to the one that Tess White asked. I want to focus on the inverse care law, which says that people who need help most often have the least access to it. As Toni Groundwater will know, that can be seen in the fact that there is a lack of prison medics. There are also areas with high levels of poverty that have the lowest number of available GPs and dentists for people living in them to access. Focusing on healthcare, are there any good schemes, and can they be scaled up to allow people to have more access to healthcare?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health Inequalities
Meeting date: 14 June 2022
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Existing issues have been highlighted by Covid, and we can now see the big fault lines throughout Scotland quite clearly. In the light of what Covid has shown us, what should be our number 1 priority to tackle, and how could we go about doing that?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health Inequalities
Meeting date: 14 June 2022
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
You mentioned that you want an IT system for prescribing. As a general practitioner, I see people who come out of prison because they need healthcare, but I do not know what diagnoses have been made in prison. You spoke in your opening statement about mental health issues. A lot of that comes to the fore in prison, where people are seen and their mental health condition is diagnosed. I do not know what that diagnosis is or what drugs they have been prescribed. Some people come to me asking for drugs that I do not ordinarily prescribe—a specialist usually prescribes them. We are in a completely unsatisfactory situation for the patient, as well as for me, because I simply do not know what to do.
We want an IT system that works and talks to other systems, and we want digital prescribing. What are your needs and asks to make the process of a prisoner coming out of prison and accessing healthcare better not only for the patient but for the healthcare professional? Invariably, that is the same thing.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 14 June 2022
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
On vocational training and the fact that it will now be NES that pays rather than individual employers, does that mean that NES will also pay pension contributions? I assume that it does. Will the regulations also allow dentists who are on vocational training to access NHS benefits, including the cycle-to-work scheme?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health Inequalities
Meeting date: 14 June 2022
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I want to pick up on the financial impact of going to prison. When someone gets released from prison, do the jobs that they can get pay much less? Indeed, will they struggle to get any job whatsoever?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health Inequalities
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Dr Jackson, I am keen to ask you for some specific examples of systemic racism. Following on from that, are there any examples of good practice—perhaps in local work—that we could push forward as Scotland-wide policies?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health Inequalities
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Dr Jackson, what can we do to improve our understanding of the systemic issues that you have described?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health Inequalities
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I would like to hear more about Dr Jackson’s comment that systemic racism is operating in Scotland. We are all aware of the problems that the pandemic highlighted for people from black and ethnic minorities in jobs that were more front facing, but the phrase “systemic racism” really struck me. I would like to explore a little more what you meant by that.
