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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COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Siobhian Brown
My last question—it is for you again, Professor Leitch—is to do with symptoms of the virus and the conflicting information that is currently in the public domain. On 22 October, the British Heart Foundation updated the Covid information on its website. It says:
“The main Covid-19 symptoms if you are fully vaccinated”
are
“a headache ... a runny nose ... sneezing ... a sore throat”
or
“a loss or change to ... smell.”
However, the symptoms that the website lists
“if you are not fully vaccinated”
still include
“headache ... runny nose ... sore throat ... fever”
and
“a persistent cough”.
There seems to be a bit of a conflict between the guidance from the UK Government and the Scottish Government and the information that other bodies are putting out.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Siobhian Brown
Thank you, minister.
We now move to questions, and I will ask the first of them. The committee is currently trialling an online platform to allow members of the public to put forward questions that the committee can ask in evidence-taking sessions, and one such question is about global collaborative working. Why are all countries not following the same travel rules? The questioner feels that, if there had been a global approach, the spread of the virus could have been better controlled.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Siobhian Brown
We are running a bit short of time, but Professor Leitch will be back next week, so we can ask him more general questions then.
Item 4 on the agenda is consideration of the motions on the affirmative instruments that we considered under the previous agenda item. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee have yet to consider the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel and Operator Liability) (Scotland) Amendment (No 5) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/359), so we will take the relevant motion at our meeting on 18 November.
I see that the minister does not wish to make any further comment on the instruments. If members are content for the motions to be moved en bloc, I invite the cabinet secretary to move the motions.
Motions moved,
That the COVID-19 Recovery Committee recommends that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel and Operator Liability) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/322) be approved.
That the COVID-19 Recovery Committee recommends that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel and Operator Liability) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/328) be approved.
That the COVID-19 Recovery Committee recommends that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel and Operator Liability) (Scotland) Amendment (No 2) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/343) be approved.
That the COVID-19 Recovery Committee recommends that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel and Operator Liability) (Scotland) Amendment (No 3) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/350) be approved.
That the COVID-19 Recovery Committee recommends that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel and Operator Liability) (Scotland) Amendment (No 4) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/357) be approved.—[Graeme Dey]
Motions agreed to.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Siobhian Brown
Good morning, and welcome to the eighth meeting in 2021 of the COVID-19 Recovery Committee. I apologise for the slightly late start this morning.
The second agenda item is a decision on whether to take item 5, which will be consideration of evidence, in private. Do members agree to take item 5 in private?
Members indicated agreement.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Siobhian Brown
That is appreciated, thank you.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Siobhian Brown
The committee will publish a report to Parliament setting out our decision on the statutory instruments that have been considered at this meeting.
That concludes our consideration of this agenda item and our time with the minister. I thank the minister and his supporting officials for their attendance this morning. The committee’s next meeting will be on 4 November, when we will take evidence from the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery.
That concludes the public part of our meeting this morning. We now move into private session.
11:24 Meeting continued in private until 11:37.COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Siobhian Brown
Agenda item 3 is evidence on the latest ministerial statement on Covid-19, and on subordinate legislation. I welcome to the meeting our witnesses from the Scottish Government. Graeme Dey is the Minister for Transport, Professor Jason Leitch is the national clinical director, Penelope Cooper is the director of Covid co-ordination and Graham Fisher is a deputy director in the Scottish Government legal directorate. Thank you for your attendance this morning.
Minister, would you like to make any remarks before we move to questions?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Siobhian Brown
People can now download the digital vaccination passports that show when their vaccinations took place. As we know, some people are unable to travel, such as teenagers who have not have their vaccination and those whose PCR—polymerase chain reaction—test may still come up positive even though they had Covid weeks ago.
Is the possibility of adapting the current digital app being explored? For example, if somebody gets Covid, that information can go into the app. If they have had two vaccinations, and they got Covid on 1 October—the national health service would know that if the person had been pinged—the app would have that information and, moving forward, it would also contain their history of booster vaccinations.
I am sorry if that is a bit technical, but I am concerned that some people are currently unable to travel because they had Covid previously and their test is still coming up positive even though they are no longer positive.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Vaccination Programme and Pandemic Preparedness
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Siobhian Brown
My last question is on the spread of vaccine misinformation, especially on social media, which ranges from claims that the Red Cross has banned blood donations from vaccinated people to the claim that deaths from vaccines have overtaken Covid deaths. What is the Scottish Government doing to counter such misinformation?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Vaccination Programme and Pandemic Preparedness
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Siobhian Brown
Our next item of business is the taking of evidence on the vaccination programme and on pandemic preparedness. I welcome Humza Yousaf, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, who is supported remotely by his officials from the Scottish Government: Derek Grieve, head of the operational vaccines division; Professor Nicola Steedman, deputy chief medical officer; Karen Duffy, deputy director, Covid vaccination delivery; and Jonathan Cameron, interim director of the digital health and care directorate. Thank you for your attendance.
Cabinet Secretary, would you like to make any remarks before we move to questions?
