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
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 February 2025
Emma Harper
As a healthcare professional who works in acute care as well as out in the community and has taught nurses in the past, I know that there have been challenges—we have heard that in the evidence that the committee has recently taken regarding digital access and access to case notes—but would it not be better to employ a digital strategy separately, because we are talking here about primary care, secondary care and care in the community? With the evolution of artificial intelligence, would it not be better to look at that separately, rather than inserting it into the bill?
Brian Whittle: No, because all healthcare should be connected. The connection between healthcare professionals, and how we move care from part of the NHS into primary and secondary care and even, in some cases, the third sector, should be seamless.
As I have said many times, this country is way behind the rest of the United Kingdom, which is way behind much of the rest of Europe. The longer we leave the issue, the harder the solution is going to be. It is incumbent on the Parliament to send a message to the Government and set a target. I know that the cabinet secretary agrees with me on that.
We need a general platform that allows there to be autonomy across the whole sector for the deployment of different kinds of software. It is incredibly important, especially in an acute setting, that a person is able to access pharmacology or whatever has come out of primary and secondary care. If somebody has come out of hospital, it is important that everybody understands their role in delivering their care and understands what other care has been given. I find it very frustrating when I listen to the cabinet secretary, because there are many mixed messages coming out of the Government, and we are not making any progress.
I urge the committee to pass amendments 116 and 117, because, if anything is to come out of the bill, it is fundamentally important that the digital platform is put in place.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 February 2025
Emma Harper
As a healthcare professional who works in acute care as well as out in the community and has taught nurses in the past, I know that there have been challenges—we have heard that in the evidence that the committee has recently taken regarding digital access and access to case notes—but would it not be better to employ a digital strategy separately, because we are talking here about primary care, secondary care and care in the community? With the evolution of artificial intelligence, would it not be better to look at that separately, rather than inserting it into the bill?
Brian Whittle: No, because all healthcare should be connected. The connection between healthcare professionals, and how we move care from part of the NHS into primary and secondary care and even, in some cases, the third sector, should be seamless.
As I have said many times, this country is way behind the rest of the United Kingdom, which is way behind much of the rest of Europe. The longer we leave the issue, the harder the solution is going to be. It is incumbent on the Parliament to send a message to the Government and set a target. I know that the cabinet secretary agrees with me on that.
We need a general platform that allows there to be autonomy across the whole sector for the deployment of different kinds of software. It is incredibly important, especially in an acute setting, that a person is able to access pharmacology or whatever has come out of primary and secondary care. If somebody has come out of hospital, it is important that everybody understands their role in delivering their care and understands what other care has been given. I find it very frustrating when I listen to the cabinet secretary, because there are many mixed messages coming out of the Government, and we are not making any progress.
I urge the committee to pass amendments 116 and 117, because, if anything is to come out of the bill, it is fundamentally important that the digital platform is put in place.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Emma Harper
Good morning. I am thinking about the language that has been used and, in particular, the word “messy”. I think that the situation is complicated rather than messy.
The rural payments and services section of the Scottish Government’s website includes the whole-farm plan guidance that was published in October 2024. There are different steps that farmers can go through. There is a link to one page that lists the milestones that need to be reached by 15 May 2025. The guidance is about helping farmers—whether they are involved in small farms, crofts, dairy farming, beef production, sheep farming or whatever—to transition in such a way that there are no cliff edges. That is what we talked about when we considered the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill.
The fundamental reform that you have talked about relates to how we support food production and food security. You mentioned the war in Ukraine. I do not think that the Government is sitting around not doing anything. People need to hear such assurances. All the work that is going on in the background with ARIOB and so on is part of the process of helping to support food production and food security in Scotland and beyond.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Emma Harper
There are various platforms on social media in addition to Elon Musk’s X. Is the Government proactively looking at which social media platforms or other methods of communication can be used to promote such programmes?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Emma Harper
A few weeks ago, we had a round-table discussion with forestry folks. One of the issues that came up was the difficulty that farmers and crofters experience in accessing funding for agroforestry. I have had a look at the Government’s website, and I can see that there is support available for broadleaf planting, improving biodiversity and so on. However, I would be interested to hear whether the Government is working to make it easier for farmers to access grants for agroforestry.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Emma Harper
Iain Carmichael has basically answered my question about the differences between crofters and bigger beef farmers, and I think that I understand that there are exemptions for conservation grazing or for small herds. I want to clarify that there is no one-size-fits-all policy but that there is engagement with everybody about how they will manage their plans for small crofts.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Inshore Fisheries Management Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Emma Harper
If primary legislation was needed, that would need to be in the next parliamentary session.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Inshore Fisheries Management Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Emma Harper
You have already said that you are working with ICES in Copenhagen and SAMS to support data collection and data management.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Inshore Fisheries Management Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Emma Harper
I am hearing all these acronyms, which I am still trying to get my head around—RIFGs, IFMI and SSMOs. I am interested to know, as we are developing the processes of inshore fisheries management, whether new primary legislation will have to be created or we will manage the new inshore fisheries programme with existing legislation.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Inshore Fisheries Management Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 5 February 2025
Emma Harper
Good morning. In relation to the 313 FOI requests, as a member of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, I hear about FOI requests for the health service, which are frustrating for staff, because answering them diverts them from providing patient care and clinical care. I understand that.
Do you categorise FOI requests? Are they put into groups to make it easier to respond to them? Is it individuals who ask for information? How do you manage the resources that are needed to respond to freedom of information requests?
