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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 3461 contributions
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Jackson Carlaw
The next petition is PE1865, on the use of surgical mesh and fixation devices, which was submitted by Roseanna Clarkin, Lauren McDougall and Graham Robertson. Colleagues will recall that we took extensive evidence on the petition just prior to the October recess. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to suspend the use of all surgical mesh and fixation devices while a review of all surgical procedures that use polyester, polypropylene or titanium is carried out and guidelines for the surgical use of mesh are established.
We took evidence from Maree Todd, the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport; David Bishop, Scottish Government mesh team leader; and Terry O’Kelly, a senior medical adviser at the Scottish Government, and we agreed to consider the evidence at this meeting. As I am sure that members will recollect, the evidence-taking session highlighted a number of key themes, the first of which was the work of the Scottish Health Technologies Group on mesh and alternative treatments such as natural tissue repair.
Secondly, there was the importance of informed consent for patients undergoing mesh treatments. The minister accepted that more work needed to be done on the matter, given that people were reporting an experience similar to that of women who had allegedly been through the informed consent process in relation to transvaginal mesh, as identified in the parallel petition on mesh that we closed at our previous meeting.
The third theme that emerged was that of future data collection using a unique device identifier, such as a barcode, on all implanted devices to track the device and patient progress.
A summary of the evidence has been provided for members in this week’s papers, and we have also received a response from the petitioner following the evidence session, which has been circulated, too. Perhaps colleagues would like to discuss where their minds are at following the evidence session.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Jackson Carlaw
Indeed. I am sure that my party has been subject to that discretion as well, but we prevailed.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Jackson Carlaw
Splendid. The capacity of politicians for a bit of political self-flagellation never dims, so we will ask the various electoral authorities for their views on how we might suitably be re-elected under different methods. Notwithstanding the Scottish Government’s lack of appetite, we will take the matter forward and consider it afresh, so we will keep the petition open on that basis.
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Jackson Carlaw
The next petition is PE1902, on an appeal process for community participation requests. The note on the petition is quite long but, as if to prove my earlier point, we are joined again by Rhoda Grant, who was not necessarily expecting to be with us this morning. I am pleased that she is here, because it means that I now do not have to read out what would have been her written submission if she had not joined us.
The petition, which was lodged by Maria Aitken on behalf of Caithness Health Action Team, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to allow an appeal process for community participation requests under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. The 2015 act was intended to encourage and support community involvement and participation in public services. Part 3 of the act introduces the right to participation requests, which aim to ensure engagement and dialogue between community participation bodies.
The right to appeal decisions on participation requests was examined by the Local Government and Communities Committee during its post-legislative scrutiny of the 2015 act, and a recommendation in relation to an appeals process was made in the committee’s final report.
A three-year evaluation of the operation of participation requests was published in April 2020 and concluded:
“Given the significant challenges to introducing an appeals process and in ensuring its fairness and robustness, alongside the very small numbers of participation requests completed using the legislation, this is likely to be a longer-term piece of work.”
The Scottish Government submission notes that the Scottish Community Development Centre has been asked to explore what an appeals process might look like and that the centre will report its findings later this year. I am delighted to ask Rhoda Grant to speak in support of the petition.
11:00Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Jackson Carlaw
A recurring theme of this morning’s meeting seems to be the need to ensure that requests for appeals are recorded and the outcomes monitored, given that the same issue arose in a previous petition.
Do members agree to keep the petition open?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Jackson Carlaw
I am minded to agree with you and am supportive of your proposal, particularly in the light of the COVID-19 Recovery Committee’s inquiry on the matter. We could let that committee know that we have received this petition on the scheme. Of course, we would not be referring the petition to that committee—we would only be advising that we had received and closed it.
That brings us to the end of our formal business. I thank everyone very much.
Meeting closed at 11:06.Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Jackson Carlaw
Colleagues, are we content to close the petition on that basis?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Jackson Carlaw
Item 2 is consideration of new petitions. For those who are watching, and for petitioners who might be following proceedings, before we consider these petitions for the first time orally at the committee, we have sought the views of the Scottish Government, and in some instances other submissions have also been received, which allows us to have informed discussions ahead of consideration of the petitions.
The first new petition, PE1900, which has been lodged by Kevin John Lawson, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure that all detainees in police custody can access their prescribed medication, including methadone, in line with existing relevant operational procedures and guidance.
In its submission, the Scottish Government confirms strongly that it considers that
“fast and appropriate access to treatment including all forms of opiate substitution is important.”
It highlights its new national mission to reduce drug deaths and harms and the medication-assisted treatment standards that ministers are committed to embed by April 2022. The Government confirms that it has sought assurances from the Scottish health in custody network that opioid substitution therapy is being provided to people in custody across Scotland, and it goes on to state that once the medication-assisted treatment standards are fully embedded, it will monitor provision in the NHS Grampian area.
In his submission, the petitioner suggests that there is a contradiction between what official guidance states must happen to detainees in custody in relation to prescribed medication and what is actually happening. He asks that an inquiry is launched to look into the death in custody of detainees who, in the petitioner’s opinion, were
“medically triaged by unqualified police staff.”
Do colleagues have any comments?
I read the petition with a great deal of concern, but I then read the Scottish Government’s submission. It was a strong response that sought to assure us that the practice in place is to the contrary. The weakness in it is that no register is kept that can substantiate the fact, so we do not know how many requests for prescribed medications have been received, nor do we have confirmation of how those requests were dealt with.
Although I am reassured by the Scottish Government’s commitment that detainees should be able to access their medication, I am slightly unnerved by the fact that we are unable to demonstrate that that is the case. I wonder whether the absence of any formal record of requests received or prescriptions issued is entirely as it should be.
Do any colleagues have a view?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Jackson Carlaw
Fair enough. That seems sensible.
Is the committee happy with all of that?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Jackson Carlaw
I was not sure whether you were going to make the same point or a different one.
We will write to the Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care to ask how the Scottish Government will address the specific concerns that were raised in the petitioner’s request, both in the short term and in the context of that forthcoming legislation. We will also write to the minister to ask how he intends to collect and disseminate examples of good practice of services that are available.