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 926 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Jenni Minto
That is a fair point. I understand that the majority of boards allow siblings to stay on site with their parents. I recognise what you are describing. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be in that situation. I reflect on the nursing staff, the clinicians and the people that work for the YPFF who I have met and recognise how caring they are. Where possible, they will want to support families in these difficult, traumatic circumstances.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Jenni Minto
I think that the committee heard evidence from Stephen Wardle last week about the change in the model in England and the improvements in outcomes there.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Jenni Minto
Generally, I think that our health service can only benefit from support from the third sector. The operational improvement plan, the population health plan, and the strategic review framework all point to a need for much more holistic healthcare. That includes both the primary care that we get in our general practitioner surgeries and from opticians and pharmacists and so on, and the acute care in our hospitals, as well as a wraparound, if I can describe it like that, from the third sector, providing a different type of support that it is very good at.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Jenni Minto
Convener, I could not agree more with that final comment. I think that communication is incredibly important. The task and finish group is being clear about communicating within their sphere of influence, but I absolutely take that on board and think that it is a very fair point well made.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Jenni Minto
You make the point.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Jenni Minto
I have been very clear that ScotSTAR will transfer the babies. The decision about whether the mother can travel with the baby depends on the health of the mother. My understanding of the layout of a ScotSTAR ambulance is that the mother would have to sit for the duration of the journey, which might not be appropriate for her own health, so separate transportation decisions as to the safest and the right way for a mother to be transferred would be needed. It may be by ambulance, but it may also be by private car.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Jenni Minto
ScotSTAR provides a separate ambulance; it is not a general ambulance. ScotSTAR ambulances are key ambulances designed specifically for neonatal baby transfer.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Jenni Minto
You are absolutely right that ScotSTAR is key to ensuring the right support. As I highlighted earlier, ScotSTAR has been operating for 20 years. It is a well-recognised model of providing transfer between hospitals for the smallest and sickest babies. As I said earlier, ScotSTAR and the Scottish Ambulance Service, which operates ScotSTAR, have been involved in the best start work right from the start, and that is very important.
Any modelling that is required will be done. As Kirstie Campbell noted, the work is happening on a financial basis. One of the directors of finance, who is part of the task and finish group, is looking at the work from a once-for-Scotland approach. If the capacity of ScotSTAR needs to increase, that will certainly be built into our approach to ensure that babies are transported in the safest, most careful way, to ensure the best outcomes for them.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Jenni Minto
Thank you for that question. I think that you heard some evidence from Stephen Wardle about that last week.
From the work that we did with Crosshouse in Ayrshire and Arran sending patients to Glasgow and the Victoria in Fife sending patients to Lothian, it was clear that the best outcomes are if the mother can travel while the baby is in utero. That should be picked up in the visits that mothers-to-be have with their maternity staff. They will be put on one of the different pathways for expectant mothers and that would be taken into account. There will be certain areas that will require the maternity staff to ensure that they recognise whether a mother is likely to give birth early.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Jenni Minto
I am sorry if I have given you that impression; that was not the intention.
All the capacity work is being done now, and it is important that it is done. We have been very clear that it needs to be done carefully. I am aware that some of the evidence that you heard last week was that the modelling had not been done. That is exactly the work that we have asked the task and finish group to do, to ensure that we have the right services to provide the right care for the babies.
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