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 989 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 3 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
You rightly highlighted in your statement the intensive support that accompanies MRCs. Can you give assurances that there will be intensive support whenever an MRC is imposed? Can you also talk a little about the additional resources that will be required to do that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 3 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
For clarity, the specific concern was around an MRC being decoupled from secure care such that the support package would not go with it. Are you being absolutely clear that there will be a package of support for a child who has an MRC?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 3 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
Yes.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 3 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
You say that the bill builds on what is already there. I find it interesting that you have said that you feel that there is no change when, clearly, the bill widens the criteria. I am not necessarily disagreeing, but I think that it is important to be very clear about any potential risks or benefits of broadening those criteria. It is not more of the same; it is different.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 3 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
That is helpful, thank you.
My final question is about the effectiveness of MRCs. The policy memorandum says that no evaluation of the effectiveness of MRCs has been carried out. How will their effectiveness be evaluated going forward?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 2 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
Social isolation and loneliness can affect anyone at any time in their lives. I strongly agree with the minister that this is a public health issue and that we have a collective responsibility as a society to address it.
I last contributed to a debate on social isolation and loneliness in January 2019. During that debate, I reflected that Scotland was leading the way as one of the first countries to publish a national strategy on tackling social isolation and loneliness. I also spoke to Age UK’s call for policy makers to be clear about the difference between loneliness and social isolation.
Loneliness is not the same as social isolation. People can be isolated yet not feel lonely, and people can be surrounded by other people yet still feel lonely. The distinction between the two concepts is often overlooked, which makes it difficult to understand what can help people to reduce their feelings of loneliness.
Loneliness is a subjective feeling that is about the gap between a person’s desired level of social contact and their actual level of social contact. It refers to the perceived quality of a person’s relationships. Loneliness is never desired, and lessening those feelings can take a long time.
As the minister mentioned, social isolation is an objective measure of the number of contacts that people have. It is about the quantity and not the quality of relationships. People may choose to have a small number of contacts, and if people feel socially isolated, that can be overcome relatively quickly by increasing the number of people whom they are in touch with.
Loneliness and social isolation are different but related concepts. Social isolation can lead to loneliness, and loneliness can lead to social isolation. They are different, but they can be experienced at the same time. People may feel different levels of social isolation and loneliness over their lifetimes, moving in and out of such states as their personal circumstances change. Loneliness and social isolation also share factors that increase the likelihood of people experiencing them, such as deteriorating health and sensory and mobility impairments.
Quality matters, because bringing people together to increase the number of their social contacts is not an end in itself. Good-quality, rewarding relationships are needed to combat loneliness.
A lot has happened since January 2019. As the Government motion acknowledges, the Covid-19 pandemic meant that more people across society suffered as a result of social isolation and loneliness. As is always the case, the suffering was not spread evenly. Those who, arguably, already had the greatest challenges felt the greatest impact.
The biggest increase in loneliness during the pandemic was seen in older adults—those aged over 60. I am sorry that they are not mentioned in the Government’s motion. Their experiences and the impact on their health and quality of life were perhaps most visible to me during the pandemic.
There was no greater illustration of how harmful social isolation and loneliness are than for those who saw the change in their loved ones in care homes who did not receive visitors. Constituents described to me in heart-breaking terms how they felt that their loved one was fading away without the good-quality visits from friends and loved ones that I spoke about earlier. That had a profound impact on me during the pandemic, and I will never forget it.
I know that lessons have been learned from our experiences in that public health emergency. Although “older people” is no longer specifically in the job title, I am sure that the Minister for Equalities, Migration and Refugees will wish to champion the rights of our older citizens with determination and vigour.
Just as the pandemic impacted disproportionately on some, the Tory cost of living crisis means that the poorest and most vulnerable in our society are more likely to experience poorer mental and physical wellbeing, lower life satisfaction, and feelings of loneliness. Without a doubt, that will have an impact on people’s ability to make and maintain connections, to take up opportunities to interact with one another and to stay physically and mentally healthy.
Last week, I had the opportunity and pleasure of meeting the Poverty Alliance, the Scottish Women’s Budget Group and some of the women who had contributed to “It’s hard work being poor”, an important report on the cost of living crisis. All the women reported making significant changes to their daily lives to try to manage rising costs, including taking on additional hours of work and reducing social activities—reducing that social contact. Many women reported having run out of ways in which they could adjust their daily life, and having concerns about managing rising costs.
Stella is a contributor to the report. She is a black lone-parent mother, aged between 35 and 44. She lives with her children and has a long-term illness and disability. She accesses universal credit and is seeking employment due to the cost of living crisis, despite experiencing chronic pain and fatigue. To quote her:
“This cost-of-living crisis has brought untold pain and suffering on women especially single parents and children because of the way it impacts our lives on a daily basis. Not being able to afford the essentials of life can be very stressful and robs women of their dignity and self-worth.”
The report contains actions, for all spheres of government, which deserve serious consideration by those who have power and responsibility over policy and resources.
Social isolation and loneliness are public health issues and are closely intertwined with issues of poverty and inequality, which have been exacerbated because of the pandemic and will continue to be affected by the on-going Tory cost crisis. As a society, we have a collective responsibility to address that. I welcome the work that the Scottish Government is doing so far and encourage it to go further but, goodness, how much better Scotland could do if we were free from the need to invest in mitigating Tory harms and if we had all the levers of a normal independent country.
15:13Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 26 April 2023
Ruth Maguire
I would like some clarification from Stephen Bermingham. You said that we could not tell a victim details of a compulsory supervision order, which I absolutely appreciate. You will all have real-life examples of where harm has been done and there is a victim. In terms of the victim’s safety planning, you said that there could be informal ways that children and their families might be able to understand—I will just say it bluntly—that they would be safe and they would not encounter the person who had harmed them in certain areas. Is that the sort of thing that you mean, whereby their victims could be partially informed without getting the details of the individuals? Does that make sense?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 26 April 2023
Ruth Maguire
I hear what you are saying and I am sure that, in extreme circumstances, they would have to do so. I suppose that I am thinking of examples—I will not start talking about specific ones—whereby harm can be caused that is not reaching that level, which we could be preventing.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 26 April 2023
Ruth Maguire
I am grateful that you raised that, because another of our concerns is the subjectivity of that change. In its submission, SWS also mentioned some concerns in that area. Is there anything that you would like to share in that regard?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 26 April 2023
Ruth Maguire
Is that element of the safety of the victim covered in existing guidance for practitioners and professionals?