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 2025 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
I have a quick question about self-directed support. It is 10 years since the Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 was passed, and the committee has heard questions about how self-directed support is working or not working. Donald Macaskill has said that 70 per cent of care involves third sector organisations. I am interested in the difference that the bill can make in addressing immediate challenges in social care, such as improving self-directed support, which is all about people taking control and making choices for themselves.
I am not sure who wants to answer that first.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
Good morning. My question is kind of on the back of Sandesh Gulhane’s question. Will establishing a national care service increase the visibility of social care and give it equal weighting and equal standing? In previous scrutiny of the bill, I was keen to look at standardised education, career pathways, increasing social care’s visibility and establishing a process for recognising social care as a professional career pathway, because we see the work that social care providers do when they go into people’s homes, for instance.
I declare an interest, as I am still a registered nurse with the Nursing and Midwifery Council. I am interested in whether you agree that, if the national care service is nationally managed, it will improve the visibility of our care workers.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
You have given some good examples, such as PEG tube feeding and caring for people who have stomas, and I was also thinking of the support provided to people for, say, reablement and recovery from stroke. That sort of support involves mobility, moving and handling, all of which requires lots of skill.
Are we confident that at the moment we have a multidisciplinary approach to assessing people’s needs so that care can be delivered effectively? Could we reflect in the bill that need for the right assessment to deliver the right care to the right person?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
So, is the winter preparedness plan not deliverable?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
Evaluation of the plan is essential in order to reflect on what works and what we should take forward in the bill.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
Just a final—
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
Okay. Thanks very much.
Meeting of the Parliament
Covid-19 Inquiries (Scottish Government’s Provision of Information)
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
A substantial number of people will be involved in Government decision-making processes. What engagement has been undertaken with civil servants to ensure that their views inform robust decision-making processes?
Meeting of the Parliament
Rural and Islands Housing
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
I will take an intervention from the minister.
Meeting of the Parliament
Rural and Islands Housing
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
“Rural & Islands Housing Action Plan” contains a wide range of examples of how rural and island housing has been created and delivered. The diverse and innovative approach should be welcomed.
I want to focus on the unique rural housing challenges that are experienced in communities across Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders. We have many opportunities to make a difference in improving rural housing and in encouraging people to move to our rural areas, to address depopulation and to keep our rural communities alive and thriving. Such possibilities include incentivising housing development on brownfield, vacant, abandoned and derelict sites, and exploring alternative types of housing to meet the needs of our areas.
Marie Curie’s briefing ahead of the debate was useful in highlighting that accessible housing and adaptations to housing need to be made more quickly, especially for terminally ill people. I thank Marie Curie for that briefing.
Mark Griffin spoke about population decline, which is a real threat to the sustainability of many of Scotland’s rural communities. The lack of good-quality, affordable rural housing is a key concern. It is crucial that we acknowledge that the Scottish Government alone cannot tackle the critical challenges of depopulation. National and local government and the third, community and private sectors all have a role to play if we are to tackle depopulation collectively.
