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 700 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Care Bill
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Gillian Mackay
Good morning, cabinet secretary. The supplementary LCM notes that there is
“a lack of evidence showing that hymenoplasty is in fact being practised in Scotland.”
Are there any plans to collect more data on that and, more widely, on attitudes towards virginity in Scotland?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Gillian Mackay
Given the difficulties that the pandemic caused with keeping in contact with children and their families, as well as the decreased visibility of children during lockdown, is there a risk that a greater number of children will have fallen through the cracks and not been identified by public services as vulnerable or at risk? What action has been taken to identify those children?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Care Bill
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Gillian Mackay
Given that those practices often happen in secret, which means that it is difficult to gather data on them, is there any plan for an awareness-raising campaign around the fact that those practices are now offences, in order to ensure that women and girls who might not be aware that they are offences are well informed and know their rights?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Gillian Mackay
The writer Jack Monroe has painstakingly documented rising prices in supermarkets, shrinking product sizes and the reduction in value ranges. What conversations is the Scottish Government having with the retail sector about the impact of the reduction in value ranges, in particular on the cost of living among lower-income families?
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
Gillian Mackay
Convener, Mr Strang managed to pre-empt my supplementary question, which was about whether we need a change of policy by the UK Government to make things easier. I will hand back to you.
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
Gillian Mackay
It is clear from yesterday’s joint committee evidence session with Kit Malthouse MP that the Scottish and UK Governments take a very different view on the causes of drug use and how that should be addressed. What impact will that have on the two Governments working together on drug-related deaths? What, if any, changes need to be made to improve partnership working?
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
Gillian Mackay
Good morning—[Inaudible.]—UK Government—[Inaudible.]—Is the minister confident that there is still a way forward for Scotland to launch a pilot?
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
Gillian Mackay
Thank you.
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
Gillian Mackay
Just briefly, convener.
In his evidence at yesterday’s joint committee meeting, Kit Malthouse said that he did not recognise poverty as a driver of drug use and argued that drugs and violence drive poverty. I am deeply concerned about the apparent equating of drug use with violence and the UK Government’s belief that poverty does not drive it. What impact will that clear conflict between the Scottish and UK Governments’ understanding of the causes of drug use have on your ability to work together on the issue and on efforts to tackle the stigma surrounding drug use?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Common Frameworks
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Gillian Mackay
Did stakeholders raise any concerns about the frameworks? The committee did not receive any responses to its calls for views, but it would be good to understand whether any concerns were raised with the Government.
