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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COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statements and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Siobhian Brown
I invite the Deputy First Minister to move en bloc motions S6M-01688, S6M-01885, S6M-01886 and S6M-01918.
Motions moved,
That the COVID-19 Recovery Committee recommends that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel and Operator Liability) (Scotland) Amendment (No 5) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/359) be approved.
That the COVID-19 Recovery Committee recommends that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel and Operator Liability) (Scotland) Amendment (No 6) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/382) be approved.
That the COVID-19 Recovery Committee recommends that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) Amendment (No 3) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/384) be approved.
That the COVID-19 Recovery Committee recommends that the Coronavirus Act 2020 (Early Expiry of Provisions) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 [draft] be approved.—[John Swinney]
Motions agreed to.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Baseline Health Protection Measures
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Siobhian Brown
Thank you. I ask Leon Thompson from UKHospitality the same questions.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Baseline Health Protection Measures
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Siobhian Brown
Thank you. That was very informative. I put the same questions to Barry McCulloch from the Federation of Small Businesses Scotland.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statements and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Siobhian Brown
Under agenda item 2, the committee will take evidence from the Scottish Government on the latest ministerial statements on Covid-19 and on subordinate legislation. I welcome to the meeting our witnesses: John Swinney, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery; and, from the Scottish Government, Professor Jason Leitch, national clinical director; Dominic Munro, director, Covid-19 exit strategy; and Elizabeth Sadler, deputy director, Covid-ready society division.
Thank you for your attendance and for your letter providing further information on vaccination certification monitoring information following your last appearance at the committee, as well as the letter that we received yesterday about long Covid and children. Deputy First Minister, would you like to make any remarks before we move to questions?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Baseline Health Protection Measures
Meeting date: 18 November 2021
Siobhian Brown
Good morning and welcome to the 11th meeting of the COVID-19 Recovery Committee in 2021. This morning we will continue our inquiry into baseline health protection measures, with a specific focus on how the measures are working in the hospitality, business and leisure sectors.
I welcome to the meeting Gavin Stevenson, from the Scottish Licensed Trade Association; Leon Thompson, executive director, Scotland, UKHospitality; Barry McCulloch, head of policy, Federation of Small Businesses Scotland; Kirsty Cumming, chief executive of Community Leisure UK; and Professor Irene Petersen, professor of epidemiology and health informatics at University College London. Thank you for giving us your time this morning.
This is the third of four planned evidence sessions on baseline health protection measures. The measures are the main tools that we are using to respond to Covid-19 and include ventilation, face coverings, social distancing and vaccination.
Each member will have approximately 12 minutes to speak to the panel and ask their questions. We are tight for time this morning and have a number of witnesses, so I ask you to please keep your responses as brief as possible. Do not feel that you have to answer every question. I apologise in advance: if time runs on too much, I may have to interrupt members or witnesses in the interests of brevity. I will begin by asking the first question.
As we move into winter and try to keep as many businesses open as possible, the committee has been looking at baseline health protection measures such as ventilation, on which the committee heard from experts on 4 November. I remember, Mr Stevenson, that when you appeared before the committee on 16 September 2021 you told us that, in general, large nightclubs already have good-quality ventilation systems in place. The Scottish Government has announced £25 million for businesses to improve ventilation and install CO2 monitors to reduce transmission.
How well ventilated are premises in the leisure and hospitality sectors? How many businesses currently have CO2 monitors? Are businesses considering their use?
I will go to Gavin Stevenson first.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Baseline Health Protection Measures
Meeting date: 11 November 2021
Siobhian Brown
I am conscious of time; we have 14 minutes until the two-minute silence at 11 o’clock and we still have two members to go to, so we move to questions from John Mason.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Baseline Health Protection Measures
Meeting date: 11 November 2021
Siobhian Brown
Thank you for the challenging insights into all your sectors.
My question is probably for Donald Macaskill. During the pandemic, care home visiting was stopped to protect the most vulnerable. That was very difficult for all the families. However, following the petition that was lodged by the care home relatives Scotland group, the Scottish Government is planning to introduce legislation known as Anne’s law, which will define a resident’s right to see and spend time with those who are important to them. What are your views on the feasibility of balancing visiting in care homes with the need for infection prevention and control measures?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Baseline Health Protection Measures
Meeting date: 11 November 2021
Siobhian Brown
Thank you for that guidance. I am sure that all elected members have such issues in their inboxes at the moment, because of this very challenging time.
During the past 18 or 19 months, it would have been irresponsible if we were not putting measures in place to stop the challenging situation, and we all know that we are facing a challenging winter. However, on Tuesday 9 November, 2,233 new cases of Covid-19 were reported in Scotland and yesterday that number rose to 3,852 new cases, which is very alarming. Do the three of you believe that the vaccination passports should be extended to other settings?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 11 November 2021
Siobhian Brown
Good morning, and welcome to the 10th meeting of the COVID-19 Recovery Committee in 2021.
Item 1 is a decision on whether to take in private item 4, which is our approach to the proposed coronavirus (discretionary compensation for self-isolation) (Scotland) bill. Do members agree to take that item in private?
Members indicated agreement.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Baseline Health Protection Measures
Meeting date: 11 November 2021
Siobhian Brown
The committee continues its enquiry into baseline health protection measures, taking evidence from stakeholders in health and social care services. I welcome to the meeting: Donald Morrison, a member of the British Dental Association Scotland’s Scottish dental practice committee; Dr Andrew Buist, the chair of the British Medical Association’s Scottish general practitioner committee; and Dr Donald Macaskill, the chief executive of Scottish Care.
I thank the witnesses for giving their time to us this morning. This is the second of the four evidence-taking sessions that we have planned on baseline health protection measures. Those measures are the main tools that we are using to respond to Covid-19. They include ventilation, face coverings, social distancing and vaccinations. Today’s meeting will focus on the role of baseline health protection measures in keeping health and social care services running over the winter. We will also consider what long-term support might be required to support the sector to recover.
Will the witnesses briefly outline the continuing impact of Covid-19 on their sector? Are we using the right approach to baseline health protection measures to help us to get through the winter?
