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.
Criathragan Hide all filters
Displaying 1201 contributions
|
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Budget 2025-26
Meeting date: 17 December 2024
Carol Mochan
I know that time is tight, so I will quickly ask about two areas that have been discussed before that need thought around capital investment. The first is reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in NHS buildings. Do you know where we are with that? To the best of your knowledge, will that be addressed?
The other area is the commitment to net zero in the health service. That really changes things for the health service, and is an important aspect of it. How do you feel that capital investment on that will go this year?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Budget 2025-26
Meeting date: 17 December 2024
Carol Mochan
I want to ask about alcohol and alcohol harm. It has never been more urgent for the Government to devote sufficient resources to enable the development of a coherent plan of action to prevent people from suffering from the many and varied harms of alcohol. At this stage, it does not feel as if the budget will provide for that. Will the Government commit to looking at ensuring that we get enough resources to tackle alcohol and alcohol harm?
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 17 December 2024
Carol Mochan
The cabinet secretary is correct that the Government-led nursing and midwifery task force should play an important role in improving recruitment and retention of the workforce.
However, there is little clarity in the proposed budget about how the task force’s recommendations will be fully delivered. Does the cabinet secretary agree with me on that, and can he confirm that he is committed to fully resourcing the delivery of those important recommendations?
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 17 December 2024
Carol Mochan
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to improve the recruitment and retention of nurses, in light of recent reports that the number of students accepted on to nursing courses remains below its targets. (S6T-02253)
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 17 December 2024
Carol Mochan
This is the third year in a row in which Scotland has failed to fill places on nursing courses. There are currently 2,380 whole-time equivalent nursing and midwifery vacancies in Scotland and we know that there has been a reduction in the overall number of nursing posts advertised here. What is the Government doing specifically to ensure that those studying nursing are guaranteed a job when they qualify?
Meeting of the Parliament
Healthcare in Remote and Rural Areas
Meeting date: 12 December 2024
Carol Mochan
I really appreciate that intervention. It sounds as if we could put some effort across the Parliament into moving a bit faster for those professions, particularly those that are highlighting to us that they really need this to happen in remote and rural areas.
A debate on rural healthcare cannot be complete without discussing maternity services, and I am sure that other members will raise that. Patients who live in my region of Dumfries and Galloway are all too familiar with the challenges in accessing pathways and services. As has been discussed many times in the chamber, expectant mothers in Stranraer are forced to travel an average of 75 miles or more to deliver their babies. That is unacceptable. The thought of having to make that journey while heavily pregnant makes me nervous, never mind expectant mothers. The Government is aware of that and must do more.
Meeting of the Parliament
Healthcare in Remote and Rural Areas
Meeting date: 12 December 2024
Carol Mochan
I fully agree with Douglas Ross. He has spoken about that often in the chamber.
On women’s health, accessing something as basic as gynaecological care should not require entire days of travel. The women’s health campaigner Rebecca Wymer has said:
“women make up 51% of Scotland’s population so gynaecology is not specialist care. Gynaecology is a basic human right”.
Therefore, we should have those services in rural areas.
Alcohol consumption remains a prominent problem in Scottish society, but remote and rural communities are particularly disadvantaged when it comes to prevention and support. I hope that we can talk more about that. We should be talking more about the relationship that Scotland has with alcohol.
The Government must listen to the vast number of charities, unions, health boards and patients that are crying out for reform in our rural health services, because one size does not fit all. We are discussing problems with rural NHS services that I think have been exacerbated by poor decision making and governance. We need more honesty about what is actually happening to patients out there. The challenges that are being discussed today are real. In a country that prides itself on universal free healthcare—as I know we all do—it is frankly shocking that this Government has allowed things to get so bad. I hope that we can work to get things done, because the situation is not good enough at the moment.
Meeting of the Parliament
Healthcare in Remote and Rural Areas
Meeting date: 12 December 2024
Carol Mochan
I know that Emma Harper takes the issue seriously, but we would all agree that it is not safe for women to have to travel across the country on the A75 in that condition. We must be more honest about that.
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 12 December 2024
Carol Mochan
A recent Audit Scotland report on alcohol and drug services recommended that the Scottish Government increase funding to tackle alcohol-related harm by mid-2025. However, the budget indicates that those services received a real-terms funding cut. How does the Scottish Government respond to Alcohol Focus Scotland’s assessment that
“the budget in its current form is ... lacking in the ambition and determination needed to tackle Scotland’s alcohol emergency”?
Meeting of the Parliament
Healthcare in Remote and Rural Areas
Meeting date: 12 December 2024
Carol Mochan
While you were speaking, the opportunity for people who are in training to go to the islands came to my mind. Do you think that more could be done in that regard so that people see the benefits of the work that is done there, and also the lifestyle, which they might be interested in?
