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 1296 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Emma Harper
I think that Clare Haughey said that 200,000 baby boxes had been given out so far. I know that NHS Dumfries and Galloway has had 1,241 and NHS Borders 1,033, but are you able to say a wee bit about the impact of their introduction and how they have helped to support and protect families and met some of the challenges of the poverty that we are seeing?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Care Bill
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Emma Harper
Thank you, convener. I was just waiting for my camera to come on.
Cabinet secretary, I will pick up on your comments about working with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Obviously, a lot of work has taken place between the civil servants in both Governments. In your opening statement, you outlined that, originally, the bill was encroaching on devolved areas. Will you tell us a little bit about the work that has taken place between the two Governments to achieve legislative consent, and can you confirm that work will continue to ensure that Scotland’s devolution settlement is always considered in future legislation?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Emma Harper
As someone who is interested in child poverty and public health, I wonder whether you can tell us to what extent child poverty is viewed as a public health issue.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Common Frameworks
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Emma Harper
If any change or policy divergence is proposed, it will be important for there to be clear and timely communication so that the Scottish Government is aware of that.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Emma Harper
It is a quick question about the importance of tackling stigma and discrimination, which we have talked about in the past. Obviously, if we reduce stigma, more young men, young women and young persons will come forward. The ice hockey team in Dumfries has a campaign to tackle stigma and discrimination called “Skate out of darkness.” That is important work, so could you give us a couple of comments on the importance of stigma?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Emma Harper
Maree Todd mentioned the UK Government’s austerity policies, which have had an impact, but I will not discuss poverty and disability too deeply.
I want to touch on how adverse childhood experiences, such as eating disorders, can affect health outcomes. During the pandemic, there has been an increase in the number of people with eating disorders, and I am interested in that area. How do adverse childhood experiences affect children as they grow up? What work is being done to address eating disorders?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Emma Harper
I have a quick supplementary. Maree Todd mentioned progress on self-sampling for cervical cancer, in which I am interested because NHS Dumfries and Galloway is part of the research. My understanding is that there were 6,000 women who had defaulted on their smear, of whom 25 per cent have now taken up self-sampling. Therefore, 1,500 women have been screened who would not have attended in the past. That interesting progress shows that self-sampling might be a way forward.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Common Frameworks
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Emma Harper
Ultimately, this is about organ accessibility and saving lives.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Emma Harper
The 1,140 hours of childcare is delivered by local authorities. What is the Scottish Government doing to help local authorities or other public organisations to deliver a Scotland where our young people flourish?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Common Frameworks
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Emma Harper
I am a former liver transplant nurse in Los Angeles and I was always interested in looking at the tracking, the tracing, the safety and where the organs came from. To what extent is the cross-border sharing of tissues, organs and blood an issue for us in Scotland?
