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 ˿ 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.
Displaying 737 contributions
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 23 December 2021
Brian Whittle
The second part of my question is about what happens if the current cycle continues. We are all weary of dealing with the pandemic. We have already mentioned the behavioural response to restrictions. One of my colleagues talked about the use of check-in apps for track and trace. There are reports that those are being used less. I do not know whether you are aware of it, but there are reports of fans at a football match before the event restrictions were put in place chanting about refusing to have a booster.
We are concerned about disaffection and non-compliance, especially among the young. Do you recognise that? How do we combat that and ensure that a high level of compliance is maintained as we become more weary?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Brian Whittle
I raised a point about consistency of messaging during the pre-meeting briefing. Driving in this morning, I and a couple of colleagues were listening to a radio programme on which legitimate—[Inaudible.]—were putting forward their thoughts on the omicron variant coming from South Africa and whether it is particularly virulent. One was saying that we need a circuit breaker. The experts were clashing and bumping heads with one another.
We can tell from our postbags and our constituents’ phone calls that there is a lack of understanding about where we are going and what the omicron variant means, which might have an impact on compliance. I have raised the issue that people are angry about being unable to access NHS services. How do we get a consistent message across to the general public so that there is the maximum level of compliance?
10:45COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Brian Whittle
My final question is for Professor Leitch. There has been a lot of discussion about the pressure that will be put on the NHS. However, that is not necessarily to do with hospitalisation; it is to do with public services being affected by absenteeism due to Covid. We are seeing that happen increasingly. Are you concerned that the rise of the omicron variant and the speed of that rise will put more pressure—unnecessary pressure—on our NHS than it can cope with?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Brian Whittle
Earlier, you said that you are having to act on a fast-moving and changing picture. That is exactly the same for every other Government across the world, which suggests that the Westminster Government and the devolved Governments should work ever closer together and have a consistent approach. Where are we with that? Is that happening? I was pleased to hear Chris Whitty’s messaging. Are we working together across the UK on having the same approach?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Brian Whittle
Yesterday, the First Minister announced that an extra £100 million had been secured, if you like, out of the Scottish budget to try to tackle Covid. A further £220 million from Westminster has been announced. That is £320 million. What is the ask, if it is not £320 million? How short are we in terms of what the Scottish Government would like to have?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Brian Whittle
I have a specific question for Derek Holliday. We have not really focused on people who are caught in homelessness and addiction. How do we reach out to those communities, bring them into the fold and ensure that they are offered vaccination along with everybody else?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Brian Whittle
I will move on a little bit from my colleague’s questioning on vaccine hesitancy in the groups that we are discussing. I wonder whether there is inertia and a perceived difficulty in accessing vaccination. Perhaps vaccines are seen as another issue that needs to be dealt with among so many other issues that the people who we are discussing have to face. As Alex Rowley said, do we need to take vaccination to the public rather than waiting for them to come for vaccination? Most people seem to be getting their knowledge from social media and fake news, which is undermining trust. Should overcoming that be the approach that we should be taking? That is a question for Derek Holliday.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Brian Whittle
I am interested in the term “vaccine hesitancy”. I wonder whether there is almost an inertia within that, in that the vaccine is perceived as being too difficult to access or to travel to. To extend the conversation that we have had so far, and in relation to behavioural difference, do we need to take the vaccine to the public and to ethnic minority groups rather than wait for them to come to the vaccine, for want of a better expression? We have talked about social media, fake news and how people access information. Do we need to be more proactive in taking the vaccine into communities?
Do we have Dr Carey Lunan with us? I am sorry; she is on the next panel. I have got that wrong. In that case, I will put that question to Magda Czarnecka.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Brian Whittle
I think that Mohammed Razaq wants to comment, too.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Brian Whittle
I want to finish that line of questioning by taking it to its ultimate conclusion. Do we know who the people are who have not taken up the vaccine? Should we approach them to ask why they have not taken up the vaccine so that we can reassure them that it is a safe way to protect themselves and then offer them the vaccine locally? Is that the point that we are getting to? I put that question to Dr Andrea Williamson.