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 1156 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Common Framework on Public Health Protection and Health Security
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Emma Harper
Finally, with regard to surveillance and other data, I think that it is necessary that we look at the number of Covid cases and the behaviour that has, say, led to an outbreak. We hear about people who are, for example, against wearing face coverings. If we are looking at surveillance in different parts of the four UK nations, are we able to make good comparative decisions that show that one way might be better than another? Would that inform our search for the best way of dealing with the pandemic?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Emma Harper
Sometimes all these budget lines, top lines and different figures just get thrown out there. I am interested in the idea of £15 per hour for care persons. That is what a band 5, three-year university-trained staff nurse makes. If we were going to make a challenge to move or increase that spend, that puts another burden on workforce planning, and that would be a concern for me. I am suggesting that social care staff should be supported and educated to have clinical expertise and progression, but £1.6 billion is an interesting figure that you have given us—if such a measure were to be taken—for a £15 per hour salary. It would be interesting to hear your additional comments on that.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Common Framework on Public Health Protection and Health Security
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Emma Harper
Good morning, Dr Phin. I am interested in information sharing. Given that we now have different scientific advisory groups in each Administration, many of the members of which will, I am sure, know each other, we probably want to pursue a collaborative process using non-legislative measures rather than legislative approaches, which is part of the memorandum of understanding. I am interested in how good information sharing is between the four nations. You have said that there are three representatives from Scotland but 15 from England in the group, and only one from Wales and two from Northern Ireland. How is information currently shared if there is a top-heavy input from England compared with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Emma Harper
I had one more question, about progress towards increasing primary care spend by 25 per cent—I think that the Government has a commitment to increase primary care spend by 25 per cent. I make that my final question.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Emma Harper
At previous meetings, the committee has taken evidence on shifting the balance of care and moving spend to be more preventative, moving the focus away from hospital settings and more towards the community. The Scottish Government has committed to shifting the balance of care so that at least 50 per cent of front-line health spending takes place in community health services. That commitment is in the budget. Do we now need to be more ambitious, or is 50 per cent adequate for what we are planning?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Emma Harper
I am pleased to be asking about sport and active living. We know that, during the first lockdown, people getting out for their daily mile or a walk was really important, including for their mental health. There is a proposal in the budget that investment in sport and active living will double to £100 million by the end of the parliamentary session, which is really good news. How will the additional funding for sport and active living be prioritised?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Emma Harper
I have a quick question about social prescribing. In the previous session, the Health and Sport Committee produced a report on the benefits of social prescribing and said that it is an investment, not a cost. Social prescribing is good for physical and mental health. What needs to be done, or is being done, to demonstrate that social prescribing is really good? How will that work provide evidence that social prescribing could benefit from further investment?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Common Framework on Public Health Protection and Health Security
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Emma Harper
My supplementary is similar to Sue Webber’s question about the “Hands, face, space” guidance. We have test and protect in Scotland, while England has had track and trace or test, trace and isolate. What collaborative work will be done on finding out whether TTI, test and protect or whatever worked, and on people’s understanding of and adherence to the guidance? It is important that what is contained in messaging is achievable in order to contain pandemics, so I am interested to hear whether there will be any collaboration on behavioural aspects with regard to such important messages.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Common Framework on Public Health Protection and Health Security
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Emma Harper
Yes.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Perinatal Mental Health
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Emma Harper
While we are talking about access, I want to highlight the challenges for rural areas. The minister comes from a rural area in the north-east and he will be well aware of the challenges. I am also thinking of the north-west and the south of Scotland. When women from rural areas access care, are we monitoring that and tracking the care and pathways associated with it?
