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 812 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 January 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
How would that compare with the resources in England? Do you have a view on the size of team that you think would actually be required in reality in Scotland?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Food Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
It would be great if you could come back to us with that information.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Food Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
Heather Kelman referred to influencing. When suppliers and big organisations pay to promote their products and pay for where those products sit on the shelves, realistically, how much influence can you have on that practice to improve uptake of healthy foods? Are there any recommendations that the committee could make to the Scottish Government that could increase your level of influence?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Independent Review into Racism in Scottish Cricket
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
What implications does the delay to the development and approval of the action plan have for the overall timetable for addressing the recommendations of the independent review?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Independent Review into Racism in Scottish Cricket
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
Yes, that is fine—that is a bit clearer.
I have a question for Forbes Dunlop. How likely is it that Cricket Scotland will need to remain in special measures beyond October 2023?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Food Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
That is helpful.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Food Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
I want to follow up on the vitamin part of it as well. First, on the point that Sandesh Gulhane raised about personal responsibility, there are families that have to put every single bit of their time and energy into making it through the day and putting food in their children’s belly to stop them feeling hungry. That is the priority, and it is not about nutrition. I ran a health food store for several years, and I used to tell my children that protein gives you big muscles. I would get them to show me their muscles after they had eaten stuff. I told them that carbohydrates give you energy, and I would get them to show me all their energy once they had eaten something up.
There is certainly education stuff that we can do, but when you are struggling for money and feeding your kids spaghetti hoops out of a tin with some toast for three days in a row, that really does not help you. It is quite a pressure knowing that the nutritional value of that food is really quite low. We have certain vitamin and mineral supplements for pregnant women, as you mentioned, and for young children, but I wonder whether having a top-up dose that helps prevent deficiency diseases has been considered at a wider level. Earlier, the convener mentioned that we have seen some of those things coming back to a certain degree. I just wonder where that is now. I am also interested in whether anything is happening on breastfeeding, because that has an obvious long-term impact.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Food Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
I appreciate that, but that is not the position that we are in just now. Might that be considered?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Food Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
I have a couple of questions. We have already spoken about obesity, complexities around it and links to poverty, energy prices and so on. I am conscious of the time, so a short answer would be quite good, if possible. To what extent do you expect the bill to address obesity levels and protect public health?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Food Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
The focus of the bill is clearly on influencing individuals’ behaviour or restricting access, but there is a need to address things at a wider level, as well. For example, one of my local councils looked at community access to school kitchens in the evenings, which would provide cooking skills and hot nutritious food, as well as help with isolation. That is just an example. I know that there are complexities around it, but that does not mean that we should not attempt to do such things. In the very broadest terms, what other legislation or policy initiatives might be helpful for improving people’s food choices and protecting public health? I am not sure who wants to answer that.
