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 788 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Jenni Minto
If I remember correctly, you asked a similar question when I was before the committee in December. If I have understood you, the issue is whether people who are under age who buy tobacco products will then be charged.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Jenni Minto
We have extensive conversations with trading standards officers. We have been speaking to them throughout the drafting of the bill and its passage through the UK Parliament, in line with the work that we need to do on the LCMs.
In Scotland, we have a register for anyone who sells tobacco products, which will be expanded to include the new products as part of the bill. We have just invested in that, and it has far better outreach, which means that we can have direct conversations with retailers who are selling the products. It is important to underline that there is legislation to ensure that retailers do not sell to underage people. The purchaser needs to provide evidence of their age and the supplementary LCM will allow us to shift that from being simply paper documents to digitally accessible documents.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Jenni Minto
Yes, absolutely. Fiona Dill and I had a helpful visit to one of the secondary schools in Edinburgh to talk to parents—actually, fathers—who are concerned about their children accessing vapes. We have also had a campaign—I cannot remember the name of it off the top of my head.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Jenni Minto
Yes.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Jenni Minto
That shows the importance of working with Public Health Scotland so that we get the information through health surveys.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Jenni Minto
I agree, and I am often in places—on ferries, for example—where a specific announcement is made about that. Fiona, can I bring you in?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 January 2025
Jenni Minto
I recognise the work that Emma Harper has been doing on food safety. As I have outlined, I have regular meetings with the chief executive of Food Standards Scotland. It was set up to have the mechanisms to ensure that it remains the competent authority for food and feed in Scotland and that it has official controls. It is important to recognise that it does internal audits on its science and that external audits are carried out by independent scientists.
Emma Harper made a point about the ability to horizon scan and see what is new and what is coming on to the market, which will be a key aspect of the changes that are being proposed. Currently, just under a quarter of Food Standards Scotland’s time is spent on ensuring that we match the 10-year standards, whereas the proposed changes will mean that important resources can be freed up to ensure that we can look to the future to see what potential new additives could be coming on to the market in Scotland.
Georgie, do you want to add anything to that?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 January 2025
Jenni Minto
Every year, in common with every other body that is funded by the Scottish Government, FSS sets a budget to allocate its resources to the various areas that it has to cover. Those areas include the food standards regulation regimes that we are here to talk about today, along with providing the public and Government with advice on the food that people consume and improving the extent to which the Scottish public, and people more widely, have diets that are conducive to good health. There is a budget process every year, along with an audit process that looks at Food Standards Scotland’s budget and its outcomes. It is a key organisation within Scotland.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 January 2025
Jenni Minto
You are absolutely correct. Both Food Standards Scotland and the FSA concluded in their safety assessments that there are no safety concerns when Bovaer is used at the approved dose. As you have said, all feed additives are rigorously tested with safety assessments, which ensures that the products are safe. Businesses must demonstrate that the additive is safe for the animal, consumers, workers and the environment.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 January 2025
Jenni Minto
The key thing is to recognise that FSS and the FSA are moving towards a risk-based way of looking at food standards and additives. That is consistent with what is happening in other areas. It is important to recognise that, when there is a finite resource, it is necessary to make decisions about where best to put that. If you are set up to check something every 10 years, you might miss a risk assessment that has come through, because you might think, “Well, I don’t have to look at that one till later.”
However, we are now putting in the resource to ensure that FSS captures all risk assessments on different products to ensure that, as new evidence emerges on a specific product that could result in authorisation being modified, suspended or stopped, that process will be maintained. FSS has a very clear and transparent risk framework, which it monitors regularly. It will pick up any risks in relation to products to ensure that they are properly checked and that the evidence, data and science on them are captured.
