Chamber and committees

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.

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.

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Meeting of the Parliament

Action Mesothelioma Day 2023

Meeting date: 29 June 2023

Marie McNair

I am delighted to have secured this debate to mark action mesothelioma day on 7 July. I thank those members who supported my motion, and I welcome their intention to speak in the debate.

It is important that we again approach this issue on a cross-party basis. I acknowledge the contributions that have been made by members from all parties to keep our focus on mesothelioma and the wider impact that asbestos has had on our constituents.

I welcome members of the Clydebank Asbestos Group to the Parliament. Presiding Officer, I know that you and all members here in the chamber are pleased that they are able to join us. [Applause.]

We in Clydebank and Milngavie owe the group a debt of gratitude for the work that it has done for people who have been impacted by asbestos and the compassionate support that it gives to their families and other loved ones, often at very difficult times, as well as providing excellent and compassionate support. Its determination for truth and justice is resolute and strong.

I also welcome to the gallery members of the Clydebank group holiday project who have travelled through to support the debate.

Action mesothelioma day 2023 seeks to raise awareness of the disease. I congratulate ActionMeso and all other support groups up and down the country for their determined efforts to raise such awareness. As part of that campaign, we have been asked to turn landmarks blue. I am pleased to advise members that the Clydebank district heating centre, which is on the site of the former John Brown & Company shipyard, will be lit up blue on that day, as will the Beardmore’s sculpture in Dalmuir, which depicts HMS Ramillies.

Mesothelioma is a cancer that is caused by exposure to asbestos fibres and begins to grow in the linings of certain organs. It most commonly affects the linings of the lungs but can also affect the linings of the abdomen or the heart. It has a long latency period. Worldwide Cancer Research states that it can take anywhere from 20 to 50 years from first exposure to asbestos until a diagnosis of mesothelioma. It is an incurable disease, but some people can survive for many years after diagnosis.

I welcome recent developments in treatment and research, and I commend Scottish Mesothelioma Network, Mesothelioma UK, Cancer Research UK campaigners and health professionals for all their work, the importance of which we cannot overestimate.

The most appalling fact about mesothelioma is that it is preventable. Cancer Research UK estimates that there are around 2,700 new cases in the United Kingdom every year, which is the equivalent of more than seven per day. The latest Health and Safety Executive statistics show that the local authority area that covers Clydebank has the second-highest death rate for males and the fourth-highest death rate for females in the UK. Clydebank was once known as the mesothelioma capital of Europe because of its high mortality rates—a horrible description that, for us, hides the real person behind each number.

Our industrial history is the main reason for that unwanted legacy for our town. John Brown & Company’s shipyard, the Singer sewing machine factory and Turners Asbestos Cement Company’s factory were all examples of industries that often put the prioritisation of profit and production over the safety and welfare of workers.

In their book “Lethal Work: A History of the Asbestos Tragedy in Scotland”, Ronald Johnston and Arthur McIvor illustrated the dreadful work conditions that were experienced by many people in the shipbuilding industry. One lagger whom they interviewed gave a horrific account of his job:

“You opened the mat up and you left enough so you could stitch it up. You filled it with asbestos”,

folded the cloth and

“patted it all to try and make ... it ... the same ... sometimes it was hard stuff so you got big lumps of wood and you battered it ... You worked in a fog making this up.”

Those conditions were appalling and were responsible for the murder of many people from our town.

Some exposures to asbestos that have caused mesothelioma are not linked to our industrial history. Cases have emerged of younger people being affected, with one person having been supported by the Clydebank Asbestos Group after being diagnosed at just 30 years of age.

The Health and Safety Executive also reports evidence of young teachers being diagnosed with mesothelioma. That questions the continued wisdom of the HSE’s advice that asbestos being held in situ in the built environment provides the least risk to exposure.

Instead, consideration needs to be being given to a programme of phased removal of asbestos from all public buildings, starting with schools. I call on the Scottish Government to work with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Health and Safety Executive to bring that to fruition. That will be the best way to reduce exposure and further cases of mesothelioma.

The support that we give to those who have been impacted by the disease also requires us to have a social security system and legal compensation schemes that are there for people at their time of greatest need. I have listened to the Clydebank Asbestos Group talk about the running down of the Department for Work and Pensions industrial injuries disablement benefit office at Phoenix house in Barrow. Although the issue concerns a reserved matter, I have raised it in the Scottish Parliament and colleagues have raised it at Westminster. The refusal to U-turn on that decision is very disappointing. The transfer of the benefit to Scotland allows us to devise a modern system that will be more receptive to needs, once the full and safe transfer of cases has taken place. I have already secured a meeting at which the asbestos group gave its clear views to the minister, and I look forward to that dialogue continuing.

I also welcome Mark Griffin’s contribution in the form of his bill, which seeks to create a Scottish employment injuries advisory council. As a member of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, I look forward to taking evidence and scrutinising that member’s bill.

The three-year time bar for compensation must end. Although the courts have the right to exercise discretion in those cases, the legal test is often failed. It cannot be right for justice to be denied in that way, which is why I have raised the matter in Parliament with the justice minister and have secured her commitment to hear from a delegation that will include members of the Clydebank Asbestos Group.

I am hopeful that the work done by the Scottish Law Commission will lead to positive recommendations to resolve the difficulties in raising proceedings in asbestos-related cases. If those recommendations move us to a better place, I want to see them implemented during this session of Parliament.

This debate is important to my constituents and to many others who are impacted by mesothelioma. We use it to remember those lost to that horrible and tragically preventable disease, and to thank people such as members of the Clydebank Asbestos Group, researchers and charities that fight with resolute dedication for better outcomes. We can thank them most effectively by acting where we can and by standing with them in their pursuit of truth and justice.

14:06