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 2148 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 29 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
I have a constituent who, unfortunately, lost her sight during the Covid pandemic and can no longer drive, so she relies on public transport. She has been in touch because she really struggles to know what bus is coming along and where to get off the bus. Simple measures such as talking bus stops and onboard announcements would be helpful.
What measures is the Scottish Government taking to work with providers to ensure that people with vision impairments are supported to use public transport?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
We have a little bit of time left. If I may, I will go back to a point that Jackie Baillie touched on earlier, about the impact on health and social care services. Have we any figures on the number of NHS or social care staff who are currently off work as a result of long Covid? What action is being taken to address that?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
Thank you. As members have no further questions, that concludes our consideration of this agenda item and our time with the cabinet secretary. I thank the cabinet secretary and his supporting officials for their attendance.
The committee’s next meeting will be on 30 March, when we will consider our work programme and an approach paper on our inquiry into recovery of NHS dentistry services.
That concludes the public part of our meeting.
10:53 Meeting continued in private until 11:06.COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
That was helpful.
What actions has the strategic network taken to improve the consistency of care for people across Scotland with long Covid, and what oversight of the network does the Scottish Government have?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
Thank you very much.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
Good morning and welcome to the seventh meeting in 2023 of the Covid-19 Recovery Committee. We have received apologies from Alex Rowley, and I welcome to the meeting Jackie Baillie as his substitute.
First, I just want to take a moment to recognise and reflect on the third anniversary of our going into lockdown and to send our condolences to all those people who have lost a loved one or a family member to Covid-19.
This morning, we will conclude our evidence taking for our long Covid inquiry. I welcome to the meeting Humza Yousaf, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, and from the Scottish Government, John Harden, deputy national clinical director; Ashleigh Simpson, team leader, planning and quality division; and Christopher Doyle, senior policy manager, clinical priorities unit.
Would you like to make some short opening remarks, cabinet secretary?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
That would be great.
I will open up the questioning to members with supplementaries. Brian—do you want to come in?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
When we spoke to many suffering from long Covid, we found that one of the issues that they face is the prevalence of Covid that is still in the community—indeed, it is a major concern. I note that the Scottish Government is currently undertaking the autumn and winter booster programme, but as of 12 March, only just over 2 million people had taken up the winter booster, whereas 4.5 million got the first booster and just over 4.3 million got the second. There seems to be apathy among the general public about taking up the boosters, and that has grown over time. Does the Scottish Government still believe that it is important that people continue to take up what the vaccine programme offers? If so, what public health messaging is being put out there to encourage people with regard to the importance of having the booster?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
Thank you, cabinet secretary. I also want to thank you for yesterday’s update on the reallocation of unspent funds to 10 new projects that are being led by the third sector.
During the inquiry, the committee has been keen to hear from people with lived experience of long Covid; we have taken evidence from a lot of groups of people suffering from the condition and have received more than 500 responses from the general public to our call for views. I will share with you a comment from Jane Ormerod from Long Covid Scotland, who said:
“What the Government says is happening and the reality for people with lived experience do not match up. I agree that different things are happening in different health boards and that consistency is an issue. I know that everywhere is different and that the geography is different, but there needs to be overall consistency and shared principles of what that should look like in each health board”.—[Official Report, COVID-19 Recovery Committee, 9 February 2023; c 13.]
As we have gone through this inquiry, it has become evident to the committee that all the health boards are doing different things. I appreciate that some boards have experienced delays in recruiting to posts in order to implement pathways for taking care of people with long Covid, but are there any plans to develop guidance for NHS boards on specific pathways for people with the condition?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
I move to my last question. I know that recruitment is a problem in the NHS at the moment. How can health boards be supported to recruit for long Covid posts, and to what extent would recurrent funding address the recruitment issues that health boards have highlighted?
