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 MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs 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 1311 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Covid-19
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Marie McNair
The First Minister will be aware of the strain that NHS dentists have been under during the pandemic. I have been contacted by a local dental practice and by patients who are concerned about NHS dental provision. In the light of the new variant, the full resumption of services will have to be done cautiously. Can the First Minister outline what funding has been made available to support practice recovery and remobilise our dental services safely?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Social Security Scotland
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Marie McNair
Are there any figures on overpayments? What is the split between fraud and error?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Social Security Scotland
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Marie McNair
I will have a look at that. How does the Social Security Scotland practice of overpayment recovery differ from that of the DWP?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Marie McNair
Thank you for that reassurance.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Marie McNair
Going back to the guidance, is there any consultation on the content of the guidance? Did you say that it would be published on 23 December?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Social Security Scotland
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Marie McNair
The staff survey responses indicate that some staff find the internal redetermination process quite complicated. How is the organisation responding to that feedback?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Social Security Scotland
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Marie McNair
What would improve the call waiting and processing times?
09:45Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Marie McNair
My question is on theme 2. Are you concerned that the approach that you want to take might undermine the shared care of children?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Social Security Scotland
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Marie McNair
It is great to see you again. Thanks for taking the time to meet us in Dundee. I found it very helpful.
We want to take a human rights-based approach that, importantly, includes access to redeterminations and appeals. However, the number of appeals seems very low—I think that the report mentions only 40—and staff knowledge about the process seems poor. How do you promote the right to appeal to staff and claimants?
Meeting of the Parliament
International Day of Persons with Disabilities
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Marie McNair
I am pleased to speak in this important members’ business debate to mark the international day of persons with disabilities. I congratulate Pam Duncan-Glancy on securing the debate. As one of her colleagues on the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, I see at first hand her determination to ensure that the needs of disabled people are listened to.
The debate allows us to show our cross-party support for this annual event. The theme this year is fighting for rights in the post-Covid era, which I welcome. As a member of the Parliament’s Social Justice and Social Security Committee, the theme reminds me of the evidence that we recently received from the Glasgow Disability Alliance, which is clear that the pandemic has supercharged the inequalities that disabled people face and created new inequalities. Glasgow Disability Alliance correctly points out that listening to the voices of disabled people will be vital to ensuring that the recovery leaves no one behind. Therefore, the debate gives us all the opportunity to say that we hear that message and that we will listen to disabled people as we make our decisions. I am supportive of that approach, and it is my long-standing view that disabled people massively enhance our country and should be involved in shaping its future.
My view has been positively enhanced by my volunteer work with adults with additional support needs, which began in my teenage years, and by my employment as a support worker in the heart of my constituency. I draw members’ attention to my entry in the members’ register of interests on my previous employment.
As MSPs, we owe a big thank you to Inclusion Scotland for the excellent briefing that it produced for the debate. The briefing is clear that disabled people have been the hardest hit by Covid-19. It stresses that disabled people want to move forward and not back, that they want to do so as leaders and full participants, and that they want to help to create a more inclusive future. This Parliament must unite in agreement with that approach.
We have made good progress on the dignity, fairness and respect agenda as we redesign social security. The redesign has, rightly, involved disabled people, whose experiences are vital if we are to avoid, in the future, the failures of the past. For example, we have vehemently rejected the use of private sector assessments and the harsh conditionality regime that has been at the heart of the Westminster disability benefit system for many years. Once we have had the safe transfer of cases from the Department for Work and Pensions to Social Security Scotland, we will continue with the much-needed redesign.
Unfortunately, the harsh assessment regime remains for universal credit and legacy benefits. Benefit sanction levels have crept up again since sanctions were suspended during the pandemic. We must continue to call that out and not let disabled people in Scotland be subjected to a two-tier system of social security.
However, it is not just in social security that we must listen to disabled people; we must take the same approach in making decisions across the whole range of services that we provide in Scotland. In health and social care, education, housing, transport and our green recovery, we must listen to the voices of those who can help us shape a way out of the pandemic that is fair and just and leaves no one behind.
I take this opportunity to thank all the groups in my constituency that support and are led by disabled people. There is a really strong community spirit across Clydebank, Bearsden and Milngavie, and I promise that I will continue to be on their side in this Parliament.
13:25