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 1153 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Paul Sweeney
I thank the witnesses for their contributions so far. I want to ask about the definition of “terminal illness”. Section 2 of the bill defines someone as terminally ill
“if they have an advanced and progressive disease, illness or condition from which they are unable to recover and that can reasonably be expected to cause their premature death.”
A number of concerns have been raised by stakeholders about the breadth of the definition and the potential for it to include a wide range of long-term conditions. Some have proposed that the inclusion of a prognostic timescale, such as the timeline of six months in the UK Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, or a wider definition of 12 months, would be an effective means of narrowing the definition.
On the other hand, others have raised concerns that the definition is too narrow and could discriminate against people who are experiencing other non-terminal conditions that nonetheless bring unbearable suffering.
From a clinical perspective, what types of conditions do you think would be covered by the definition of terminal illness in section 2 as currently drafted? What would not be covered? If anyone has any initial desire to respond, please do so.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Paul Sweeney
Does Mr Hazelwood’s point about section 23, which gives power to the Scottish ministers to define guidance or even provide specific regulation on what the qualifying criteria might be, give you some comfort that it could be an evolving situation, and that a better definition could come through secondary legislation?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Paul Sweeney
Might that introduce an inherent bias towards providing assisted dying, as opposed to other options such as palliative care?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Paul Sweeney
Thank you. Do any other witnesses have views on that?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Paul Sweeney
Thank you very much. Are there any final remarks from witnesses, before I conclude?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Tackling Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 14 November 2024
Paul Sweeney
On 11 September 2023, the Lord Advocate stated her intention to publish a prosecution policy for the safer consumption facility. Do you have any insight on when that will be published?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Tackling Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 14 November 2024
Paul Sweeney
I thank the cabinet secretary and his colleagues for their comments so far. Does the cabinet secretary have any insight on the nature of, or the reason for, the delays with NHS Scotland Assure’s approval of the facility at Hunter Street?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Tackling Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 14 November 2024
Paul Sweeney
Last year, I had the opportunity to visit Copenhagen to see how its model operates. I was struck by how sophisticated it is. One of the key aspects of the visit was to understand the interface between the safer consumption facility, the overdose prevention facility and referral pathways into rehabilitation. The staff said that they had noted a significant increase in interest in accessing rehabilitation. Sometimes, it is non-linear—people go into rehabilitation and then come back to use the facility, or vice versa. Staff noted that services were in close proximity; it was a matter of minutes to walk to the residential rehabilitation facility.
I have just checked, and the closest rehabilitation facility to Hunter Street is the Thistle centre, as it will be known, which is about 4.5 miles away. The Phoenix Futures centre is the closest one in Anniesland. Does the cabinet secretary have a longer-term view that we should try to co-locate or at least bring facilities into closer proximity where there are concentrations of street injection?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Tackling Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 14 November 2024
Paul Sweeney
Does the cabinet secretary recognise that the recruitment has been very positive? There have been more than 700 applications for about 34 posts in the centre, which is encouraging. That is a significant overhead for operating one facility, which might present challenges when it comes to scaling up such facilities. Have the cabinet secretary and his colleagues considered how to create a hub model, with some outreach, which might be less expensive to establish?
In relation to the pattern of where discarded needles are clustered in Glasgow city centre, there is an element in the east end around the Barrowlands and a cluster near George Square and Central station. Might there be an opportunity to build the main base at Hunter Street and then have a series of satellite facilities or perhaps even mobile facilities along the lines of the converted ambulance that the unofficial pilot utilised? Are those options for how we develop the pilot? Is there scope for doing something such as that to try to capture more people? We know that people do not tend to travel very far from where they purchase drugs to where they inject them.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Tackling Drug Deaths and Drug Harm
Meeting date: 14 November 2024
Paul Sweeney
It is certainly timely that the pilot is getting under way, given that there has been a reported increase in street injection in Glasgow. I am concerned about the 12-hour gap in operation between 9 pm and 9 am. Does the cabinet secretary share that concern? Should there be an effort to increase operating hours, if that is deemed to be necessary by the health and social care partnership?
