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.
Filter your results Hide all filters
Displaying 1386 contributions
|
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Road to Recovery Inquiry
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Siobhian Brown
Good morning and welcome to the 24th meeting of the COVID-19 Recovery Committee in 2022. We have received apologies this morning from Brian Whittle.
This morning, we will continue our inquiry into the impact of the pandemic on the Scottish labour market. I would like to welcome to the meeting Susie Fitton, policy manager, Inclusion Scotland, who joins us remotely; Pamela Smith, head of economy and poverty, Public Health Scotland, who joins us in person; Professor Sir Aziz Sheikh, professor of primary care research and development, director of the Usher institute and dean of data, University of Edinburgh, who joins us in person; and Gerry McCartney, professor of wellbeing, University of Glasgow, who joins us remotely.
Thank you all for giving us your time this morning and for your written submissions. We estimate that this session will run up to about 10.20, and each member should have about 15 minutes each to speak to the panel and to ask their questions.
If the witnesses who are attending remotely this morning would like to respond to any issues that are being discussed, they should type R in the chat box and we will try to bring them in. I am keen to ensure that everyone gets an opportunity to speak. I apologise in advance that, if time runs on too much, I may have to interrupt members or witnesses in the interests of brevity.
Could I ask the witnesses to briefly introduce themselves?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Road to Recovery Inquiry
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Siobhian Brown
Thank you very much.
We now turn to questions, and I will begin with Inclusion Scotland. Susie Fitton, thank you for your very detailed written submission. The committee has a keen interest in further investigating long Covid. Your submission says that nearly 4 per cent of people in Scotland are currently living with long Covid, which is around 202,000 people. Of those, 83,000 people have done so for more than 12 months and 44,000 are reporting that it affects their ability to undertake day-to-day activities.
One of the things that I found quite worrying in the submission was the fact that early studies suggest that at least half of those with long Covid meet the diagnostic criteria for ME. We know that ME is a profoundly debilitating neurological disease that can affect multiple systems in the body. I understand that, prior to Covid, there were 21,000 people with ME in Scotland. I note that a substantial proportion of long Covid sufferers are experiencing similar illnesses, which will have a direct impact on their ability to work. I note that you feel that action is urgently needed to address this problem. What would you like to see the Government doing to address that problem?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Road to Recovery Inquiry
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Siobhian Brown
Thank you, Susie. That is very helpful.
I will move on to the link between long-term sickness and economic inactivity. Scotland has a higher proportion of 16 to 64-year-olds who are inactive because of long-term sickness when compared with the rest of the United Kingdom; in Scotland, the figure has increased to 7 per cent, compared with 5.4 per cent in the rest of the UK. Why is Scotland relatively worse than the rest of the UK? On an international scale, how do we explain the continued rise in the UK inactivity figures in comparison to other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, where the figures are declining?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Road to Recovery Inquiry
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Siobhian Brown
Professor Sheikh wants to come in.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Road to Recovery Inquiry
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Siobhian Brown
I put the same question to Tom Waters. We have two Toms with W names, so I will have to say your full names.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Road to Recovery Inquiry
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Siobhian Brown
I will bring in Alex Rowley now and then go back to Tom Wernham.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Road to Recovery Inquiry
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Siobhian Brown
I know that Professor McCartney wants to come in, but could I ask a quick question? Do you know why the figures are so much higher in Scotland than the rest of the UK?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Road to Recovery Inquiry
Meeting date: 3 November 2022
Siobhian Brown
Would any members or witnesses like to make any final comments?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Road to Recovery Inquiry
Meeting date: 3 November 2022
Siobhian Brown
Welcome to the 23rd meeting in 2022 of the COVID-19 Recovery Committee. Today we begin our inquiry on the impact of the pandemic on the Scottish labour market.
I welcome our witnesses to the meeting. Dr Hannah Randolph is an economic and policy analyst at the Fraser of Allander Institute. Joining us in person is Professor Steve Fothergill, who is from the centre for regional economic and social research at Sheffield Hallam University and the national director of the Industrial Communities Alliance. Tony Wilson is director of the Institute for Employment Studies. David Freeman is the head of labour market and households at the Office for National Statistics. Louise Murphy is an economist for the Resolution Foundation.
Thank you for giving us your time this morning and for your written submissions. We estimate that the session will run up to 10:30. Each member should have approximately 14 minutes to speak to the panel and ask their question.
I ask those who are present to please catch my eye if they would like to come in at any point. If the witnesses who are attending remotely would like to respond to an issue that is being discussed, please type “R” in the chat box and we will bring you in. I am keen to ensure that everyone gets an opportunity to speak. I apologise in advance: if time runs away from us too much, I might have to interrupt members or witnesses in the interests of brevity.
I invite the witnesses to introduce themselves briefly.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Road to Recovery Inquiry
Meeting date: 3 November 2022
Siobhian Brown
Thank you, everyone, and welcome. I will begin by asking the first question.
As I said, I thank the witnesses for their written submissions. There is a lot of evidence for us to look through in the papers. A common theme throughout the submissions is that an in-depth analysis of the impact of the pandemic on the Scottish labour market specifically has been difficult, given the lack of available Scotland-specific data. What could the Scottish Government do to improve the amount of available data on the Scottish labour market specifically?
