Chamber and committees

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.

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.

Meeting date: 15 March 2022

Rona Mackay

I am very pleased to speak in the debate, and I thank my colleague Gillian Martin for bringing it to the chamber.

Over the past two years, all our lives have been turned upside down as a result of Covid-19. We have been through some terrible, unpredictable times; in fact, we are still going through them as we try to learn to live with the virus. If it has been bad for us, we should remember the front-line medical workers—every single one of those dedicated people who work throughout all areas of healthcare—who have been heroic.

I have been fortunate enough to speak in most debates on Marie Curie’s great daffodil appeal since I was elected in 2016. In an unpredictable and ever-changing world, Marie Curie is a constant reassurance—it is like a big comfort blanket—that gives people the knowledge that they or a family member or friend will have choice and dignity in the event of terminal illness.

As the motion says,

“Marie Curie cared for over 9,000 people in Scotland during 2020-21, which is ... the highest number of patients cared for in a single year since the charity was established 70 years ago”.

That is remarkable, even by Marie Curie’s standards. To support those front-line services and continue the vital care and support that it provides across local authority areas and in hospices, the charity needs to raise £250,000 a week. That is why the appeal is so important.

Marie Curie and its amazing army of volunteers offer much to everyone who is affected by terminal illness. That involves helping families and providing bereavement support, emotional support, carer support and companionship. The amazing Marie Curie information and support service is invaluable to patients and their families in their time of need. It offers unconditional support and advice, and nothing is too much trouble.

As Gillian Martin said, the horrible Covid virus has brought into focus how necessary access to palliative and dignified end-of-life care is. We are extremely fortunate to have some amazing organisations, such as Marie Curie and Macmillan Cancer Support.

I am in favour of assisted dying for terminally ill people, but I also support palliative care, should the person should choose that, to allow a dignified and peaceful death. However, that is a very personal decision.

I am delighted to say that there are Marie Curie fundraising groups in Bishopbriggs, Kirkintilloch, Lenzie and Bearsden in my constituency. They are just some of the 85 or so groups in Scotland that do fantastic work.

In my previous speech on the matter, I highlighted research into there being too many people who care for someone at the end of life going unidentified and unsupported. That should be addressed. Carers need to be identified early, and it is everyone’s responsibility to identify them—not least general practitioners, social workers and district nurses—and to signpost them to Marie Curie so that they can at least have a break, even for just a few hours. Financial support and advice are also vital.

The problem is that carers often do not see themselves as carers; rather, they see themselves as a mother, a son, a brother or a friend doing what they do out of love, so they do not identify as a carer or ask for help, often to the detriment of their own health. Carers should know that Marie Curie is always there to step in and help to care for their loved one with tenderness and professionalism.

Marie Curie nurses give people with terminal illness choice and dignity. They make it possible for people who are faced with a terminal illness to have the choice to die peacefully in their own home, surrounded by the people whom they love. None of us knows when or if we will need the support of Marie Curie nurses, but we should all be eternally grateful that, if we do, they will be there.

The great daffodil appeal is Marie Curie’s biggest annual fundraising campaign. From wearing a daffodil pin to organising large gala dinners or small bake sales, there are countless ways for people to get involved and to know that they are contributing to an absolutely wonderful charity.

19:08