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 2048 contributions
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Bob Doris
If we have time constraints, I will bring Lucy Kenyon in, if she wants to say something. I can always follow up with the professor later.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Bob Doris
This session has been helpful. The picture that is emerging shows that, although structures are in place in the Health and Safety Executive, as Lucy Kenyon mentioned, they may not be sufficient for the ambitions that Professor Macdonald has regarding the data that we should be collecting, for example. There are systems in place, but there appears to be a weakness regarding the jobs that they should be doing. The question is whether the bill is the way to plug that gap, or whether there are other ways to do so. That is something that we have to wrestle with as a committee.
What the bill is silent about—for some, it is the elephant in the room—is whether the new SEIAC will, at some point, make recommendations on who should get industrial injuries benefits when the criteria for that are looked at again by the Scottish Government, or whether another body should do that.
My question is about the different approach that SEIAC might take in relation to those kinds of things compared with IIAC, which is, of course, looking at the same evidence and has the same experts deciding whether there is “reasonable certainty”, which is a very general expression. I suppose that that is a long way of asking whether you think that SEIAC would necessarily take a different approach to IIAC when making decisions. I am not talking about data collection, Professor Macdonald—we are admitting that there is a gap in that—I am being more general. If SEIAC and IIAC are looking at the same data, would you expect them to come to different conclusions as to whether there was reasonable certainty?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Bob Doris
I think that Professor Macdonald had Anton Muscatelli texting to prompt him to put that on the record. That was helpful for completeness.
Good morning to both witnesses. The function of the Scottish employment injuries advisory council, as proposed, is to
“investigate and review emerging employment hazards that result in disease or injury”.
That might duplicate activities of other organisations. Professor Macdonald helpfully mentioned the Health and Safety Executive, and it is imperative that it give evidence to the committee, given its crucial role. This should surely be its bread and butter, and, imperfect as occupational health might be in Scotland and across the UK, the data that you get should be used to inform the work of the HSE. Irrespective of whether it is the IIAC or the SEIAC—we love acronyms in this place—whatever the advisory board or council is, the information that occupational health gets from workplaces is vital, and it has to drive action.
I am conscious that employment law is reserved and that the HSE has a direct remit here. Is there the possibility of duplication when the SEIAC is in place? Can you say anything about your role and how we should use the vital data that you want to be collected to drive the change that you want to see? Perhaps we should take Lucy Kenyon first.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Bob Doris
That is very helpful.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Bob Doris
Sorry, convener. I will be brief.
It is my understanding—I am sorry if I have got this wrong—that the DWP has said that experts who sit on IIAC cannot also sit on any Scottish advisory board. I think that that might be the situation. Do you have any views on that? I would compare that with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the Scottish Medicines Consortium—the bodies that deal with UK health approval and Scottish health approval—which have something called multiple technology appraisals, through which they do things jointly from time to time.
There appears to be a barrier there. Do you have any thoughts in relation to that barrier? Please be brief, or the convener really will give me a hard time.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Bob Doris
Thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Bob Doris
My question was not inspired by nappies, although I should declare an interest as I have a two-year-old and it would be a significant burden on me to move to non-disposable nappies. However, I am willing to be convinced for the sake of environment. It is more about the point that Kim Pratt made that we identify straws, bags or cups case by case, and move at a relatively slow pace, knocking off one at a time.
Is there a need for the bill to cover, or for Government more generally to legislate on, a cluster of items for which we can all agree that single use should not exist, rather than simply asserting that all single-use items should be banned as a matter of course? Is there a better way of doing it than moving forward one campaign at a time? We could bring a cluster of items together and try to legislate on that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Bob Doris
I want to ask about enforcement and the guidance on that.
Glasgow City Council—certainly in my constituency—is very good. I have constituents who use wheelchairs and mobility scooters and who had no access to local services. The council had a direct conversation with them about their lived experience and put in dropped kerbs to allow them to go about their lives.
However, when it comes to enforcement, there are breaches from drivers. I get that enforcement has to be intelligence led, practical and cost effective. That might lead to enforcement in areas where other enforcement is already taking place—where there are clusters of potential driver breaches. In addition, it might not be in their local communities that those on a mobility scooter or in a wheelchair have their lives devastated by not being able to cross the road. A constituent of mine has had to travel an alternative route of almost one mile because of breaches involving dropped kerbs.
What guidance is there that local authorities should not focus their enforcement only on clusters of potential breaches or on areas where enforcement is cost effective, but should carry out enforcement where there are individual breaches that could absolutely devastate the lives of those with mobility issues?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Bob Doris
I had no interest to declare but, as I was listening to the questions, I thought that perhaps I should mention that I am patron of the Glasgow Access Panel, which is based in Maryhill in my constituency, and that there is a crossover in some of the work. Although that is not formally declarable, I put it on the record for the sake of transparency.
I have a couple of questions. My first relates to the education and awareness campaign. Most people accept that pavement parking is pretty inconsiderate—drivers know what they are doing, but they are a bit inconsiderate. We have to change that culture. However, drivers are often oblivious to dropped kerbs. That is an unintended consequence, which is due not to wilful ignorance but to a lack of awareness. Will the education campaign take that on board? There is a difference in where drivers are in relation to those things.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Bob Doris
Thank you, convener. It is a pleasure to be a member of the committee. As usual, I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests, but I do not think that anything there is particularly relevant to the work and proceedings of this committee.