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 4175 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Mr Barn, good morning and welcome. In 1993, we had George Bush Snr, Boris Yeltsin and John Major, and “Jurassic Park” was the top movie of the year. Your submission rather suggests that dinosaurs still rule the earth and Transport Scotland, when it comes to the way in which contracts are awarded. It seems to be the central point of your case that the process that is in place will not encourage interest.
10:45Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
I have to say that I am struggling here—I feel as though I am wrestling with a ball of cotton wool. Are you saying that the pathologists would have to be the ones to decide whether there were modern operational practices that would mean that there were alternative ways of fulfilling their function?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
There are around 56,000 deaths in Scotland each year and 12 per cent of them require a post mortem. In a submission to the committee, the Royal College of Pathologists stated:
“there are significant pressures on pathology, post mortem and forensic services across Scotland. With grossly inadequate facilities and staffing levels being the reality of current provision.”
I should earlier have recognised our colleague Monica Lennon, who has joined us this morning. When she raised in Parliament the issues of delays and backlogs in the post mortem service, the Lord Advocate explained that
“The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service aims to conduct its investigation and advise the next of kin of the outcome within 12 weeks of the initial report of the death in at least 80 per cent of those cases.”—[Official Report, 6 October 2021; c 3.]
Can you confirm whether those pressures on the post-mortem service exist in Scotland? What proportion of post mortems are currently reported within 12 weeks?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you, Mr Fraser. I noted that there is a mysterious statement to be made in the final half hour before we rise for the summer recess, the content of which we know not at this time. Perhaps we can all live in hope. I return to Mr Ewing.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
That is certainly a question, but I would note that, every year, 6,000 people in Canada are operated on successfully. There is also a consequential saving to the health service when a patient recovers, as they do not require constant additional medical support and treatment. I realise that there are issues to weigh up here, but I do not think that they should be casually dismissed just because of that.
According to Katy Clark, despite all the assurances that we have received about the consequences being discussed with individuals and the alternatives being properly represented to them, the petitioners still believe that that sort of thing is not happening universally. Therefore, I would be interested in getting the latest update on that matter from the Scottish Government. When the minister gave evidence along with health officials, assurances were given to us that further work was being done to provide more updated information material, and we would like to understand the status of that work and the impact that it has had.
It might well be that that will lead to our seeking to bring the cabinet secretary, rather than the minister, before us. After all, it was the cabinet secretary who first came before the committee and on whose initiative a lot of action was initially progressed. However, I think that that will be a decision for a subsequent meeting.
Do members have any other suggestions? Is the committee content with what I have proposed?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
I welcome Kate Forbes to our proceedings. I will invite her to comment after we have heard the evidence, but I have, unusually, agreed that, if there is a point during the proceedings when she would like to put a question to the witnesses, I will be happy to facilitate that if she lets me know.
We move to Mr Choudhury.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
I see that Jackie Baillie, who is not formally here to advise us on the petition, would like to come in. I have been generous today in bringing in parliamentary colleagues, so it would be churlish of me not to offer you that opportunity.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Yes, of course.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Welcome to our second session on PE1992. We are joined by representatives from Transport Scotland. I am delighted to see that we have Lawrence Shackman, Robert Galbraith and Morag Mackay. They have been following our proceedings avidly this morning. I noticed them faithfully sitting through all our deliberations on other petitions as well as the one that is before the committee now.
Do you want to make an opening statement or are you content to move straight to questions?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you for that. It might play to the discussion that we want to have about a national memorial and the possible misunderstanding between all parties about where that might be sited or the desirability of it, but we can come back to that.
Colleagues are very interested in this subject. I want to start where I finished in the earlier session, if I can be the daft laddie in relation to the petition. Did Transport Scotland ever advise the Scottish Government minister that the A9 could be completed by 2025? If not, did it warn the minister who gave that assurance to the public some years ago, particularly to all those who use the road regularly, that Transport Scotland could not meet such a target?
