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 3461 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
That seems perfectly sensible. If it does not hold such an inquiry, I will be keen to invite the petitioner to come to this committee. I think that we would also want to hear from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care about the issue that underlies the petition, which is the need to have a full review of our mental health services. We might also be interested to know the petitioner’s view on the recruitment of the lived experience panel that is being established and, potentially, to highlight that as an opportunity for active participation.
As colleagues have no other suggestions, are we content to proceed on that twin track?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
PE1924, which was lodged by Rebecca Wymer, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to complete an emergency in-depth review of women’s health services in Caithness and Sutherland.
The petitioner believes that there is a Highland gynaecology crisis that predates Covid, with funding
“funnelled into Orkney or Inverness.”
She believes that serious conditions such as ovarian cancer are potentially being missed due to a lack of specialist training for general practitioners, and she notes that there are currently no miscarriage, menopause or fertility services available in the area. She highlights the logistical difficulties that are associated with patients from Caithness having to travel to Raigmore hospital for help along roads that are often closed or dangerous to drive.
The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care explains in his submission that the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport is actively engaging with her constituents on the issues that the petition raises. She has now arranged to meet NHS Highland senior management and clinicians to discuss the delivery of gynaecological services and she will feed back to her constituents on progress.
The cabinet secretary’s submission also provides further information on? scoping work for the creation of a centre of excellence for rural and remote medicine and social care; a community midwifery unit that is being built at Caithness general hospital; improvements to maternity and neonatal units at Raigmore hospital in Inverness; and co-ordination between transport and other agencies to explore how access to healthcare can be improved, specifically in relation to the A9 and A99.
In her submission, the petitioner reiterates that all women need access to a gynaecologist, but she says that, to her knowledge, no in-person gynaecology appointments have taken place at Caithness general hospital since 2019. She is concerned that the cabinet secretary is unaware of how bad the situation with the roads is. She states that the rural unit framework has been incredibly successful for MRI machines, breast screening, cancer screening and, more recently, vaccination clinics. She suggests that it might include appointments with a gynaecology nurse or consultant to filter out who needs to be on a surgical list and who could be treated in the short term to reduce waiting lists across the board.
Do members have comments or suggestions on the petition?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Our final new petition today is PE1925, which is on changing the heavy goods vehicle speed limit on major trunk roads to 50mph, in line with other parts of the UK. The petition was lodged by David Singleton, who points out that that speed limit is 40mph in Scotland. He urges us to urge the Scottish Government to increase it to 50mph so that there is consistency.
The Scottish Government has stated that, in 2018, it conducted its
“own evaluation of the potential impacts of increasing speed limits for HGVs in Scotland”,
and it found that there would be
“small safety benefits and marginal environmental impacts”
in doing so. A pilot scheme that increased the speed limit for HGVs to 50mph on the A9
“showed positive road safety benefits”.
The Scottish Government is considering its policy on HGV speed limits as part of the national speed management review. That review, which has commenced, will consider appropriate vehicle speeds for Scotland’s roads and will include stakeholder and public consultation.
However, the petitioner remains unconvinced that the Scottish Government is planning to increase the HGV speed limit on major trunk roads. He urges Scottish Government officials
“to travel with a driver of an HGV on the 100 mile A75 trunk road in both directions on the same day”,
going
“One way at the 40 mph limit and the other way at a higher speed when and where it is safe to do so.”
The petitioner believes that doing that
“would give them some idea of the problems caused by slow moving traffic”
and some comfort in relation to an increase in the speed limit.
The petition is interesting, as the petitioner has highlighted something that the Scottish Government is looking at. However, he is not convinced that that will necessarily lead to anything.
Do members have any comments or suggestions for action?
The Scottish Government says that it is having a review. We might reasonably ask for some clarity on when it thinks that that might come to fruition. Maybe we should ask whether there is any way in which the petitioner or others can engage with the Scottish Government in relation to the underlying issues. I am not sure that the Scottish Government will want to take up the offer of an HGV lift up and down the A75, but I am sure that we would be happy to draw that to its attention.
Are colleagues content with that approach?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you, Callum. We wish you lots of success. You will be seeing the First Minister shortly. Before the committee agrees on its next actions, is there anything else that you would like to say to us?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
We have quite a clear steer on the petition. Out of interest, how many bottles did the money buy?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Crikey!
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
We know that Callum will meet the First Minister. In considering Callum’s evidence and taking forward the petition, does the committee agree to write to the First Minister following the meeting to outline the objectives that Callum has set and to find out what she and the Scottish Government might be able to do to advance the objectives of the petition?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
I suppose that, like you, I have made assumptions about the existence of a regulatory and legislative environment. Why do you think that we all thought that?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
In essence, then, there is protection against commercial harvesting without permission.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you very much. Before I bring in colleagues, let me say that we saw the portfolio of photographs, which were striking. We found the series of images to be arresting. It is extraordinary how much stuff can just be dropped in and be so successful at invading a space and crowding round it.
What has got us to where we are now? Is it a lack of knowledge or a lack of regulation? Is it a lack of enforcement of the limited regulation that there might currently be? You might say that it is all those things.
