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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Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 February 2022
Elena Whitham
I welcome David Strang to his role.
We know that there are strong links between poverty, deprivation, inequalities and problem drug use. In Scotland, we can trace that back to the economic policies of the 1980s. The people who grew up during that period, who are now in their late 40s and early 50s—my age cohort—and who live in deprived areas have the highest risk of drug deaths. How crucial is the Scottish Government’s anti-poverty work to tackling the drug deaths crisis, and do you recognise the need to work across policy areas and Government departments, local authorities and the third sector? You have already touched on that a bit, but I want to gather your thoughts on that area.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 February 2022
Elena Whitham
We heard from Minister Kit Malthouse that the UK Government is still not convinced about the use of safer consumption facilities for public health purposes. What is your feeling about that? In my experience, such facilities are a gateway for people to access services. People who might be afraid to come forward or reach out in other ways can be signposted in a setting where they are actually looked after and kept safe—and, hopefully, kept alive if something terrible happens. What are your thoughts on the use of safer consumption facilities as a public health and safety measure within the basket of measures that we are convening?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 February 2022
Elena Whitham
As a member of the Scotland prevention review group, I understand the clear need to prevent homelessness in the first place, and I am glad to see that a public consultation is under way on the prevention duties. Minister, do you, like me, recognise the need for wider public bodies to have a duty to ask and to act when it comes to preventing homelessness, and to work across departments and sectors to support individuals and families? How do you see such an approach helping to reduce drug deaths and the devastation that they cause?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Elena Whitham
Turning back to Scotland, we know that the cohort of people among whom we are seeing the most drug deaths at the moment are people of my age, who were born in the 1970s and experienced the lack of a just transition from the closure of our pits and industries. It is among those individuals that we are now seeing multiple deprivation and problematic drug use. We know that there is an issue with poly-drug use in Scotland.
16:15In the time that I have, I want to push you again on the issue of a public health approach versus a criminal justice approach. The UK Government’s 10-year strategy seems to have a really heavy focus on a criminal justice approach, but, as someone who has supported people facing criminal justice for their problematic drug use and with all the underlying social problems that they have, I know that a criminal justice approach would lead to those people not engaging. How do we square that circle?
You mentioned Karyn McCluskey and the violence reduction unit, but I would point out that, instead of solely criminalising people, the policing involved in that initiative sought to deter violence with, for example, amnesties for knife possession. Can I push you a little bit more on that?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Elena Whitham
My questions come from the fact that I am the convener of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee and a former Women’s Aid worker and homelessness worker who spent a lot of time supporting people—[Inaudible.]—drug misuse.
My first question is around poverty, which you were just speaking about. We know that there are very strong links between poverty, deprivation, adverse childhood experiences, trauma and drug deaths, especially here in Scotland. We know that it is a very complex and multifaceted issue to address. Would you agree with the opinion that Scotland’s higher rate of drug deaths reflects historical patterns resulting from economic policies of the 1980s, which we can also see in the north-east of England? Do you have views on which particular anti-poverty programmes, such as the Scottish Government’s new child payment, will have the greatest impact on reducing drug harms?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Elena Whitham
I do not think that anybody is saying that that is a bad thing. We would all recognise that a basket of measures is needed.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 January 2022
Elena Whitham
I will bring in my colleague Miles Briggs.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 January 2022
Elena Whitham
Does any member wish to speak in the debate of the motion? Please type R in the chat box if you want to come in. [Interruption.]
My door bell has just gone—would you believe that? What can you do when you are live?
Three members have indicated that they would like to speak. I will bring Pam Duncan-Glancy in first, then Evelyn Tweed and Jeremy Balfour.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 January 2022
Elena Whitham
Evelyn Tweed will ask about themes 5 and 6, after which Jeremy Balfour will also ask about theme 6.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 27 January 2022
Elena Whitham
Pam, do you have anything further to ask at the moment?
