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
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Emma Harper
Dr Galea-Singer has covered this already. It is not just about illicit substances, because people are prescribed diazepam and codeine. You mentioned pregabalin, too. We are thinking about how to address polydrug use. Research is going on into a reversal agent for benzodiazepines.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Emma Harper
I used it when I worked in a recovery room, although there is an issue with potential seizures. However, that could perhaps go alongside naloxone, for instance. We deal with quite complex issues when we talk about polydrug use.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Emma Harper
Assertive outreach also works for some folk who are remote and rural.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Emma Harper
I have a quick question about cross-border pathways. Sometimes, folk in Kelso can get in-patient recovery spaces in, say, Carlisle. Does the bill cover how we manage cross-border costs?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Emma Harper
Good morning. I will pick up on what Eleanor Whitham said about challenges in remote and rural contexts and stigma. In remote and rural areas, it might be challenging for a single mum with two kids who is experiencing harm from alcohol to voluntarily take treatment because of the worry about having her weans removed from her. Does consideration need to be given in the bill to stigma, access and remote and rural contexts?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Emma Harper
I want to pick up on what has been said about the trauma-informed approach. Last week, I visited Stepping Stones community larder in Castle Douglas, which is a membership group where people can pick a grocery basket. The volunteers who work there recognise the need sometimes for distress brief interventions, which can be delivered by anyone. When you were Minister for Mental Health, convener, you took DBI forward as a pilot scheme. It is a multidisciplinary and third sector approach that is about wider engagement. Sometimes, a door is opened for the first time at a community larder organisation. Does the bill need to be amended to widen it out beyond healthcare professionals to people out there in the community?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Emma Harper
Liam Wells said that some people might be drinking harmfully but not consider themselves dependent. In the earlier evidence session, I talked about the single mum who is looking after two weans. If she ends up with a diagnosis, that puts her family at risk of being removed from her. There are sensitivities around diagnosis versus access to whatever care or treatment would be warranted for that person.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
A Climate Transition for Scottish Agriculture
Meeting date: 19 March 2025
Emma Harper
According to the Scottish Government website, the number of carbon audits has dramatically increased. Is it a slow burn to get that data? That relates to my question to Dr Robinson about reluctance. There are early adopters, and there are folk who will need to be supported.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
A Climate Transition for Scottish Agriculture
Meeting date: 19 March 2025
Emma Harper
Following your point about profitability and rewarding farmers for sequestering carbon dioxide, Dr Eory, I am thinking about biodiversity issues as well.
For instance, in a recent round-table meeting on forestry, I talked about supporting ground-nesting birds and managing land for the sake of biodiversity. In the Clyde valley, 23 farmers are now involved with the Clyde valley waders project. They are working with SAC Consulting and there is a lot of peer-to-peer learning on things such as cover cropping for curlew and planting oats for black grouse. Even though the oats do not contribute to the farm’s profitability, they are part of the support for improving biodiversity. It is all about the complexity of putting the right tree in the right place, because trees can sometimes harbour predators that predate on ground-nesting birds. How do we reward farmers for actions such as implementing changes in their farm practice to support biodiversity?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 19 March 2025
Emma Harper
The Scottish Government’s rural payments and inspections division’s tent was next to the Conservatives’ tent at the Dumfries agricultural show last summer—I stopped and spoke to the team—so there was visibility of the Government there.
