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 3266 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Gillian Martin
We heard from quite a few care-experienced young adults, some of whom had become parents, and they talked about being very isolated during the pandemic. Last week, I mentioned to Kevin Stewart a very astute comment that one young woman made. She said that all local authorities know who leaves care and when that happens, but the health and mental wellbeing outcomes for young people who leave care and go into their adult lives are known to be quite bad. She made the point that local authorities almost seem to leave them and that there is nothing in place to support their mental health.
What is your response to that? Local authorities act independently of one another and they all act differently, but what are we doing to ensure that young people who leave care or have care experience have better health and wellbeing outcomes?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Gillian Martin
Sandesh Gulhane has a supplementary question on that subject. He can then move on to the theme of child development during Covid.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Gillian Martin
Perhaps you have just been promoted, minister.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Care Bill
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Gillian Martin
Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. You have largely answered my questions and it is good to hear that a lot of your previous concerns have been resolved. You mentioned that one in particular is still outstanding and I believe that Sandesh Gulhane has some questions on the advertising aspect of things.
I have a parliamentary process question about the notice that you are able to give Parliament of any regulations that are made in devolved areas where consent is not required and also where consent is required but SI protocol 2 does not apply. Where does Parliament sit in relation to being able to scrutinise those decisions?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Care Bill
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Gillian Martin
Thank you. I will hand over to Sandesh Gulhane.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Gillian Martin
We move to questions on housing policy from Evelyn Tweed, who joins us online.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Gillian Martin
Yes—go on.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Gillian Martin
Thank you. That is helpful.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Gillian Martin
We move on to questions about the protection of vulnerable children.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 8 February 2022
Gillian Martin
Before I bring in my colleague Sandesh Gulhane, I will bring in the Minister for Children and Young People. A lot of the approach to tackling the wellbeing of children has been in very early and significant interventions, both universal and bespoke. Will you give us an overview of that, from the perspective of your portfolio?
