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 1617 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Clare Haughey
One of the other areas that the committee has touched on is qualifications. I believe that the bill speaks about medical practitioners, although I might be misquoting slightly there. However, witnesses were clear that the level of qualification that would be required for doctors to be able to participate in assisted dying could encompass those at foundation year 2 level. When representatives of the Royal College of Psychiatrists were at committee, we asked about their level of confidence in such a junior doctor participating in those assessments of capacity and so on. They were quite resolute that they did not feel that such a junior doctor would have sufficient experience at that level of their training. Why have you chosen that particular term, which encompasses such junior doctors, and, should the bill be agreed to at stage 1, would you look to amend that provision?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Clare Haughey
Do you think that the bill needs tightening up to define what the phrase means, to address the concerns that were raised at that evidence session about people travelling to Scotland and setting up a temporary address here in order to access assisted dying?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Clare Haughey
We will move straight to questions, beginning with Emma Harper.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Clare Haughey
The bill would require someone to be “ordinarily resident” in Scotland for 12 months before they would be eligible for assisted dying. Last week, in giving evidence, Police Scotland raised questions about what is meant by the term “ordinarily resident”. I am keen to explore why that term was used and what “ordinarily resident” means in the bill.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Clare Haughey
In view of the letter from the finance committee and its determinations, what the Scottish Government has put on record and the omissions that you have alluded to today in relation to your financial memorandum, will you be looking to review your financial memorandum?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Clare Haughey
Several respondents to the consultation on the bill noted that there is no provision for challenging or reviewing decisions that are made by doctors on whether someone’s illness meets the definition in the bill of terminal illness, whether they have capacity to make the decision or whether they have been coerced. The Edinburgh Napier University centre for mental health practice, policy and law research submitted that it was
“concerned at the lack of any accessible mechanism by which the decision of a doctor can be appealed or independently reviewed by the courts.”
Again, is that something that you considered? Now that the bill has been under some scrutiny, would you consider amending it in that regard?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Clare Haughey
Conversely, is it unreasonable for there not to be an appeal process for someone who has perhaps been denied access to assisted dying?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Clare Haughey
As we are only halfway through our questioning, I will briefly suspend the meeting for a comfort break.
11:23 Meeting suspended.11:31 On resuming—
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Clare Haughey
Welcome back. We will continue to take evidence from Liam McArthur and his accompanying witnesses. I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which states that I am employed as a bank nurse by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
I would like to explore a couple of issues with you, Mr McArthur, starting with conscientious objection. We have heard various arguments and questions at committee in relation to the conscientious objection clause in the bill, who it includes and what the clause extends to. Section 18(1) of the bill sets out that no one is
“under any duty ... to participate in anything authorised”
under the bill, if they have
“a conscientious objection”
to doing so. The bill does not prescribe to whom the conscientious objection would apply, but the policy memorandum indicates that it is intended to apply to doctors and other health care professionals who are involved in the process. There is some argument that the clause replicates a provision in the Abortion Act 1967 and is therefore likely to be interpreted in the same way by the courts. That would mean that the objection clause might extend only to those people who are directly involved in the process of assessing, prescribing and providing assistance. Could you perhaps clarify your thinking around that and who you envisage that the conscious objection clause would apply to?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Clare Haughey
Last week, a group of GPs in my constituency asked me a question that I was not able to answer. They asked whether there would be a duty for someone expressing that conscientious objection to refer a person requesting assisted dying to another assessor. Can you give me a definitive answer?
