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 1761 contributions
|
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
It sounds like what you propose in terms of that conscientious objection would be quite discrete. How do you counter what surveys of palliative care staff and staff who work in hospices say? According to those surveys, quite large numbers of staff have talked about leaving those services should your bill be passed.
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: 28 January 2025
Clare Haughey
Has the Scottish Government come to any decision or any conclusion about whether an oversight body should be convened to monitor the function of the legislation should the bill pass?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 January 2025
Clare Haughey
I appreciate that and the committee understands that you have set out the Government’s position.
Does the Government have an opinion on the proposed five-year review period of the legislation or the suggestion that the bill should include a sunset clause?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 January 2025
Clare Haughey
That was for doctors only. So, for the entirety of the healthcare staff who may be involved if the bill passes, the training costs could be anticipated to be greater.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 January 2025
Clare Haughey
The first item on our agenda is consideration of a negative instrument, the purpose of which is to introduce the mandatory fortification of non-wholemeal wheat flour with folic acid. That is intended to be a public health intervention that will work alongside other public health measures to help to reduce the incidence of foetal neural tube defects in Scotland by increasing the dietary intake of folic acid, and therefore blood folate levels, in women of child-bearing age.
The amendments that will be made by the instrument specify that mandatory flour fortification will take place by requiring that non-wholemeal wheat flour be fortified with folic acid in the specified quantities. The instrument amends the Bread and Flour Regulations 1998 in Scotland by introducing the mandatory requirement for non-wholemeal wheat flour to be fortified with folic acid, amending the required quantities of fortificants that are currently added to flour, introducing an exemption from the fortification requirements for small mills, and making other technical amendments.
The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered the instrument at its meeting on 14 January 2025 and made no recommendations in relation to the instrument. No motion to annul has been lodged in relation to the instrument.
As no members wish to make comments, I propose that the committee does not make any recommendations in relation to the instrument. Do members agree?
Members indicated agreement.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 January 2025
Clare Haughey
That would be great. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary.
Carol Mochan is joining us online.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 January 2025
Clare Haughey
We continue our scrutiny of the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill by taking evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and supporting officials. I welcome to the committee Neil Gray, the cabinet secretary; Nicki Crossan, assisted dying shadow bill team leader; Ailsa Garland, principal legal officer; Neil Ritchie, palliative care unit head; and Joanna Swanson, healthcare quality and improvement divisional head, all from the Scottish Government.
Before we move to questions, I believe that the cabinet secretary would like to make a brief opening statement.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 January 2025
Clare Haughey
The second item on our agenda is evidence from two panels of witnesses as part of our scrutiny of the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill at stage 1.
By virtue of rule 12.2.3(a) of the standing orders, Liam McArthur MSP is attending the meeting today as the member in charge of the bill.
We begin today’s scrutiny of the bill by taking evidence from representatives of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and Police Scotland on law enforcement considerations in relation to the bill. I welcome to the committee Laura Buchan, procurator fiscal, policy and engagement, and Andy Shanks, head of the Scottish fatalities investigation unit, both from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service; and Assistant Chief Constable Steve Johnson from Police Scotland.
We will move straight to questions.
