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 1920 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Monica Lennon
So, that is not a red line for you?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 29 February 2024
Monica Lennon
I am glad that the minister is giving so much attention to Anne’s law. I know that Anne’s family are listening. Her husband, Campbell Duke, is listening, and her daughter, Natasha, will be listening. It is what they have to say that we all need to listen to.
I appeal to the minister to make time in her diary and that of the Government, between now and stage 2—if that is where we are heading—to listen to families such as Anne’s and so many others, who are not visitors but essential caregivers, and to take nothing off the table. We all agree that Anne’s law should be a reality. It is long overdue, and if there is a quicker and more effective route to that, let us not rule it out.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 29 February 2024
Monica Lennon
I am glad that Clare Haughey mentioned Anne’s law, and I welcome the report’s recommendations. I note that the committee agreed that Anne’s law should be fully implemented as soon as possible to ensure a human rights-based approach to care. Did it consider different options for its implementation, other than in the bill that was before the committee? Across the chamber, there is frustration in that, although we all agree on the need for Anne’s law, it perhaps does not need to be part of this bill. It could be implemented in other ways.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Monica Lennon
To ask the Scottish Government what action the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service takes to ensure that any information that it receives from pathology service providers is accurate and reliable. (S6O-03127)
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Monica Lennon
I thank the Solicitor General for that response and for clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the Lord Advocate. Her office will be aware that my constituents Ann and Gerry Stark were told repeatedly by the Crown Office and health authorities that all tissue samples of their deceased son, Richard, had been returned to the family, but that was not true. Does the Crown Office accept that the failings in that case should never have happened? Will the law officers take the opportunity to apologise to the family? Can we have more information about the urgent action that was taken since the scandal came to light last year, so that all families, including the Stark family, can have full confidence in the Crown Office when it investigates the sudden and unexplained death of our loved ones?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 22 February 2024
Monica Lennon
Notwithstanding the support that is available, we know that being unable to afford essential baby items is a reality for too many of our constituents. Nappy rationing is a horrible reality for many families and has a devastating impact on babies, children and parents.
The environmental benefits of reusable nappies are well known. They can also save families significant amounts of money, but the up-front costs can be a barrier. Scotland’s baby box gives families the opportunity to try reusable nappies, but the opt-in for that is quite low, at around 14 per cent. Will the cabinet secretary outline the ways in which the Government can come to understand that low uptake, raise awareness and make it easier for people to use such reusable products?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 22 February 2024
Monica Lennon
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking through the delivery of benefits to help families with the cost of nappies, in light of the reported increase in nappy theft linked to the cost of living crisis. (S6O-03109)
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 8 February 2024
Monica Lennon
To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to the Who Cares? Scotland research report, “Is Scotland Keeping the Promise?”, which reportedly indicates that, on the fourth anniversary of the publication of “The Promise”, key pledges made to care-experienced people are not being fulfilled. (S6F-02810)
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 8 February 2024
Monica Lennon
I agree that Who Cares? Scotland deserves credit for the report, which highlights areas of progress but also major areas of concern. To give one example, its freedom of information investigation uncovered that care-experienced children have lost more than 1.3 million school days to exclusion, despite the Promise pledging to end that exclusion. That could be just the tip of the iceberg, as several councils could not provide any data.
We need transparency, accountability and leadership if we are to fulfil the Promise, but lack of data is a constant theme of the report. Does the First Minister agree that, to keep the Promise, we have to tackle quality of data? Will he and his Government urgently review the data that is held by public authorities and report annually to Parliament? What we have here is not good enough.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 8 February 2024
Monica Lennon
As mentioned in my entry in the register of members’ interests, I am a member of Unite the union and the GMB, and I undertake other trade union activities.
I join colleagues in thanking Stephen Kerr for securing this important debate. I echo my Scottish Labour colleague Daniel Johnson, who was right to say that the Scottish Government needs to devote some of its chamber debating time to the matter because that would allow for a fuller debate and more parliamentary scrutiny.