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 1228 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 May 2025
Paul Sweeney
I thank the witnesses for attending today.
I turn to the issue of timescales in the bill. Section 3(1) states that
“treatment described in section 1(3) is to be made available to the patient as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event no later than 3 weeks after the determination is made.”
Some written submissions from stakeholders have queried the three-week timescale after the treatment determination. Some have raised issues around appropriate preparatory work with those who would be attending treatment to ensure that they are stabilised, assessed and so on.
Do the witnesses think that the bill’s requirement that treatment be made available within three weeks allows sufficient flexibility for necessary preparatory steps, such as assessment and stabilisation, to be undertaken? Would that fall within the intent of the bill’s idea of access to treatment being triggered at that point? I am keen for that provision to be clarified. Perhaps Annemarie Ward can start.
12:00Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 May 2025
Paul Sweeney
I want to turn to the witnesses in the room to pick up that point. In written correspondence, there has been mention of the fact that, for example, some people might require
“at least 6 weeks of psychosocial interventions and practical organisation.”
Given what has been said, could the drafting be tightened?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 May 2025
Paul Sweeney
Annemarie, would you like to come back in?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 May 2025
Paul Sweeney
Thank you, all, for coming today. I will turn to the quality of services, service standards and reporting mechanisms. What impact could the implementation of the bill have more broadly on the quality of services and treatment that are provided to people with alcohol and/or drug problems? I am happy to take responses in any order.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 May 2025
Paul Sweeney
Do any other witnesses have any comments to make on the adequacy of the bill’s reporting mechanisms and the potential for unintended consequences?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 May 2025
Paul Sweeney
That is helpful. On the point that was made earlier about resource and capacity, surely creating that clear demand signal would indicate where there is a gap. It might be helpful to have those expected target times against each type of treatment and pathway, so that there would at least be a clear signal of where we are not meeting those standards. Would it be helpful for that to be defined in the bill?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 May 2025
Paul Sweeney
That is helpful.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 May 2025
Paul Sweeney
Does the financial memorandum take appropriate account of potential costs if treatment options, as defined in the bill, were to be expanded? Does anyone in the room have a view on that?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 May 2025
Paul Sweeney
To be clear, are you content that there is sufficient flexibility in the provisions in section 1(5) and (6) as currently drafted to enable Scottish ministers to include the nuances to which you refer, or do you want those provisions to be amended to include specific mention of community-based support?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Paul Sweeney
I reiterate my thanks to the wide variety of people who have made representations on a challenging area of potential legislation. The more that we have delved into the complexities of the issue, the more fraught the considerations have become. In the correspondence that the committee received, I noted a story of someone whose life had been set on a negative trajectory because of dementia, which led to their early retirement. That brought to the fore the wider implications of how we manage people’s healthcare in a wider setting. Similarly, if people have a sense that they are a burden on their friends and family, it might mean that they are inclined to support assisted dying, but it also raises questions of coercion. That is the moral conundrum that we are trying to contend with. Representations that we have heard reflect many of the difficulties that we face in trying to find a way through to the right course of action.
