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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 853 contributions
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 17 December 2024
Jenni Minto
I thank Brian Whittle for his question, and I recognise the picture that he painted at the start of it. When I visited a school in my constituency, I was pretty shocked to see the handful of disposable vapes that a teacher produced. Therefore, I absolutely understand where Mr Whittle is coming from.
I agree that we need to improve enforcement, which is why we, as a Government, have a very good and close working relationship with the local authorities. In answer to Gillian Mackay’s question I indicated that we are investing £3 million directly in local authorities to support enforcement, and we also have an important working relationship with the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland. Moreover, we already have fixed penalty notices in place. The important message that will be sent with the passing of this bill and the additional UK-wide regulations on displaying vapes will, I hope, help with enforcement, too.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 17 December 2024
Jenni Minto
The Scottish Government works closely with local authorities and with the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland on that. We invest about £3 million into that work and also £50,000 to ensure that we have that relationship.
One of the important things about the bill is the fact that it is across the four nations. The UK Government has invested £100 million over five years to support HM Revenue and Customs and border control to ensure that we can reduce the amount of illicit products coming in.
Enforcement is important and that is the work that we continue to do and have great conversations about with local authorities. We also have the register of tobacco and nicotine vapour product retailers in Scotland, which helps us. It includes every retailer that sells cigarettes and other nicotine products, so we can get that information from them as well.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 17 December 2024
Jenni Minto
That is a very good question. I will hand over to Ruth Foulis.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 17 December 2024
Jenni Minto
The focus of our work over the next 10 years—or nine years, because it is a year since it was launched—is on the tobacco and vaping framework, which looks towards a tobacco-free Scotland in 2034. The UK legislation came in as we were developing our framework, and the Scottish Government has been very pleased to support it because we believe that it moves not only Scotland, but the entire UK, into the ballpark of aiming to be tobacco and vape free in 2034.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 17 December 2024
Jenni Minto
That is correct. Clause 60 of the bill sets out that the meaning of “nicotine product” includes
“nicotine, or any substance containing nicotine, which is intended to be delivered into the human body”
but we still need ways of providing cessation products for people who wish to cease smoking.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Jenni Minto
I will reflect on that, but Tom is shaking his head.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Jenni Minto
Public dental services are a very important part of our dental tapestry in Scotland and, as you highlighted, they provide emergency support. In areas where there has been an issue with high-street dentistry, we have worked closely with health boards by working directly with the public dental service. I can reference NHS Shetland and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde in that regard. We are considering how we can support them, whether it is providing funding for additional dentistry support or supporting them in other ways.
That is the work that we have been doing to date, and it will continue with the new budget. As part of the funding in the new budget, £100 million has been set aside to support entry into primary care, and we will look to spend it in dentistry to support access.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Jenni Minto
Absolutely. That reflects my experience with regard to the graveyard that was around the museum that I worked in.
It is clear that South Ayrshire Council did fantastic work in response to the recent flooding of graves. It has done proportionate work to support families who were severely impacted and distressed by the flooding incident that happened there.
It is very much the case that local authorities have to look at gravestones and do the appropriate, proportionate work to them—whether that means, as you described, staking them, or looking at ones that might be of cultural or historical significance and perhaps doing more. We do not expect the regulations to change the work that councils are currently doing with regard to graveyards and gravestones.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Jenni Minto
It is important that people are registered with a dentist, because timely access is important if they need to see a dentist. However, there is also emergency access to dentistry within hospitals, for people who need that.
It is important that we have the right workforce within our practices. We are now very much concentrating on ensuring that we have the right number of dentists. As Tom Ferris indicated, that means not only dentists but dentistry teams, so we are looking at the importance of dental therapists and ensuring that there is the right training and governance to allow patients to see the appropriate person in a dental practice and at the right time.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 10 December 2024
Jenni Minto
We recognise that we need to improve that. I pass over to Tom Ferris to give you the details.