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 1958 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
Primary Care
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Paul O'Kane
The cabinet secretary did not want to hear that from his colleague.
Our NHS is on its knees and its front-line staff are suffering. They have had enough of the failing health secretary not listening to what they need. That is why the RCN is striking for the first time in its history and why Scottish Ambulance Service staff, including paramedics, are striking for the first time in over 30 years. The cabinet secretary should deliver
“A decent and acceptable pay rise for NHS and social care staff”,
which
“is essential, not just to avoid strikes but to retain and recruit the staff we need to make essential improvements to our health service”
Those are not my words; they are the words of another former SNP cabinet secretary, Alex Neil. Perhaps the health secretary should heed the advice of his former colleague and get back round the table and listen to what staff are telling him, because it is clear that the health secretary had lost the confidence of front-line staff, patients and their families. His record speaks for itself in comparison to those of his predecessors, and he has no idea, plan or support to offer.
Patients and staff deserve so much better than this Government and this cabinet secretary.
15:34Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Paul O'Kane
The First Minister committed to the build back better approach for Scotland as we recover from Covid, but what has happened to that ambition? We need investment and support for people whose lives have been fundamentally affected by the pandemic. The Office for National Statistics estimates that there are more than 170,000 people across Scotland who are living with long Covid, yet the support from the Scottish Government to date has been inadequate. The Scottish Government committed £3 million in funding when the number of Scots with long Covid was estimated to be 70,000 people. Even that has not yet been fully allocated. Funding has not increased—
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Paul O'Kane
Will the Deputy First Minister commit to working across Government to protect funding for long Covid sufferers in Scotland to help their recovery with access to physiotherapy and multidisciplinary rehab?
Meeting of the Parliament
Primary Care
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Paul O'Kane
I would like to make some progress, if the cabinet secretary does not mind, because I am conscious of time.
The NHS is the Labour Party’s proudest achievement. It has transformed the health of our nation and is envied across the world for its defining principle of providing healthcare that is free at the point of use. However, this week, it has been revealed that the possibility of creating a two-tier healthcare system through privatisation has been explored under the watch of the cabinet secretary. This week, the First Minister and the cabinet secretary scrambled to state that they do not support any shift toward privatising the NHS, and SNP back benchers and members were scrambling to add BBC journalists to the list of things that are to blame for the current state of the NHS in Scotland. However, perhaps we should not be surprised by what we heard this week, because the SNP has form on this. Indeed, in his book “Grasping the Thistle”, the current SNP president and former MSP, Mike Russell, who was appointed to the Cabinet by Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, said:
“We would encourage the private sector to compete with established NHS, hospitals, clinics and other services. We would encourage NHS management and staff to buy out existing NHS facilities and services under favourable financial terms and join the private sector.”
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Paul O'Kane
To ask the Scottish Government what the reduction in funding for Covid recovery will be as part of the emergency budget review. (S6O-01576)
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Paul O'Kane
Sure. I presume that the Care Inspectorate pointed to those services not being included in the Feeley report. Kevin, will you comment on that?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Paul O'Kane
I will pick up on Dr Meechan’s point about what is said in the bill and in the policy memorandum. Concerns have been raised that much of this will be dealt with in secondary legislation and that the bill does not provide clarity on what process will be used to gather the data and develop the platform. Dr Meechan referred to the enormous amount of data that would have to be managed.
Do the witnesses have concerns about the issue being dealt with in secondary legislation?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Paul O'Kane
I will explore the notion of social work being within the scope of the NCS. That was not included in the Feeley report. What are your thoughts on why it was not? What is the potential impact of transferring those services into the national care service?
I will start with Suzanne McGuinness, if that is possible.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Paul O'Kane
Yes. I am going to come on to talk about what a separation might look like. However, if, as envisaged, we were to transfer criminal justice services, for example, what impact do you think that would have?
11:45Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Paul O'Kane
I want to return to the point about the fragmentation of the social work profession. We have heard, and I hear, from social workers a real concern that, if we take social workers out of the local authority context, we will run the risk, particularly in children and family services, that there will be a real disconnect from education, which has a role within child protection as well, and that the link with teams around the child will be lost. Do people recognise that that is a significant risk?
