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 4516 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Jackson Carlaw
There might come a point when, in order to advance the aims of the petition, we ask the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee to look at where the petition might go. I think that we should keep the petition open; in the first instance, write to the minister, as suggested; see what the response is; and then consider the best way forward in trying to secure the aims of the petition. Do we agree to that approach?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Jackson Carlaw
I do not think that we have ever held a joint session. The Scottish Parliament has provided its campus for the Scottish Youth Parliament to meet. The policy has been that that happens once in each session of the Scottish Parliament, I think. Are you suggesting that we write to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, to ask whether it would—?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Jackson Carlaw
I thank the petitioner very much for bringing the petition to our attention. The Government has promised action. We will have to see whether that action is forthcoming.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Jackson Carlaw
In closing the petition, we could make that suggestion, as Mr Ewing has recommended, together with Mr Torrance’s suggestions. Again, an important matter has been highlighted. Given that the Scottish Government has no plans to amend the legislation, this is probably the most effective route that we can recommend, and we will close the petition on that basis. Are we agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Unless colleagues have any other comments or suggestions, are we content to proceed on that basis?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Jackson Carlaw
We will keep the petition open and seek further information as requested. I thank the petitioner for bringing the petition back to us, which is one of the routes that we, of course, offer to petitioners after due time and consideration.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Yes. My hesitation in opening up the discussion was because I was struck by a similar point: I do not want us to embark on a duplicatory chain of investigation. On the other hand, I am not clear that the investigation to date has worked in quite the way that the petitioner seeks.
I understand that we are likely to see the Criminal Justice Committee’s submission in November, which is next month. It might be right to ask the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Fire Brigades Union to give their views to this committee on the aims of the petition. We can then take those into account when we next consider the petition, along with that submission, and decide whether there is further work that this committee could do in advancing the aims of the petition.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Jackson Carlaw
We will potentially get an indication of whether that has been incorporated into the evidence heard by the Criminal Justice Committee. When we next consider it, we will be in a better-informed position, if colleagues are content with that.
With that, we conclude our public session, and we now move into private session. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 8 November.
10:23 Meeting continued in private until 10:45.Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Agenda item 2 is consideration of continued petitions. I am delighted to say that we are joined by our very good supporters and petition champions, Rhoda Grant and Monica Lennon.
Rhoda Grant joins us in relation to the first continued petition, PE1723, on essential tremor treatment in Scotland. The petition, which was lodged by Mary Ramsay, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to raise awareness of essential tremor and to support the introduction and use of a focused ultrasound scanner for treating people in Scotland who have the condition.
In her written submission, the petitioner states that the current treatment for essential tremor—deep brain stimulation—costs a minimum of £30,000, whereas the magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound service costs £10,000. Twenty-five patients were treated in Dundee with the MRgFUS over 18 months, with 14 of them being eligible for DBS but facing a two-and-a-half-year waiting list.
The national services division has shared that it received an updated application from the lead consultant neurologist working in NHS Tayside for a new MRI-focused ultrasound functional neurosurgery service to treat patients with essential tremor. The NHS Tayside executive leadership team advised that it was supportive in principle of the application but that a paper outlining the proposal in detail had not yet been submitted for executive approval so could not be progressed. The NSD advised that an application should be resubmitted for consideration in 2024-25.
I have to say, before I ask Rhoda Grant to speak, that I am quite sympathetic to what the petitioner said in her most recent submission. She does not put it in this way, but, as has been the case with other health-related issues, those affected being able to present evidence to the committee can sometimes be a powerful additional stimulant in our seeking to progress the aims of a petition.
Rhoda, over to you.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Jackson Carlaw
The very actions that the committee was considering taking are the ones that you have just proposed, so thank you very much for those suggestions. Are we happy to incorporate Rhoda Grant’s suggestions in relation to NHS Tayside?
Members indicated agreement.
