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 775 contributions
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 16 September 2021
Brian Whittle
Good morning, cabinet secretary and Professor Leitch. I will ask a question that I also asked during the previous evidence session. Given that venues may be committing an offence if they do not “take all reasonable measures”, what involvement did the industry that is affected have in developing what constitutes “reasonable measures”? Gavin Stevenson suggested that the Scottish Licensed Trade Association was not consulted at all on the matter. To make it work properly, all the sectors will have to understand what constitutes a reasonable measure in a wide variety of potential venues.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 16 September 2021
Brian Whittle
I asked Dr McMillan about the legal obligation to “take all reasonable measures”. Given that there is potential for venues to commit an offence, how was the industry involved in developing the idea of what constitutes “reasonable measures”? What is your understanding of the phrase?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 16 September 2021
Brian Whittle
Good morning. Dr McMillan, it might be a bit like slamming the stable door after the horse has bolted, but the concern in Parliament is that there has been a lack of scrutiny of the policy because of the way in which it has been rushed through. Given that emergency Covid legislation was properly scrutinised in Parliament in a very short time, would Dr McMillan suggest that primary legislation should have been the route for vaccination passport legislation?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 16 September 2021
Brian Whittle
The issue is not only that they have to form an opinion on the definition of reasonable measures, but that they have to implement it within two weeks. You will understand the concern that there is potential for offences to be committed.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 16 September 2021
Brian Whittle
As I discussed with Neil Doncaster, vaccination passport checks will be implemented by all clubs, even small ones, because there is potential for crowd size to be taken beyond 10,000 people when bigger clubs visit. You will recognise that there are varying abilities to finance that. One of Neil Doncaster’s suggestions was that initially, in phase 1, as the technology is being introduced, it would be more practical to instigate spot checks. Has the Government considered that?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Brian Whittle
I want to ask about the longer-term prospects for international travel and the travel industry. We recognise that tackling Covid is very much a moving feast and that we have to be fairly reactive in our approach, but obviously the travel industry is struggling and is hugely impacted. Unfortunately, that moving feast and the reactive way in which we have to approach Covid do not work well for businesses, which need an indication of a route map to allow a degree of essential business planning. I think that everyone would recognise that vague definitions of objectives and indicators are frustrating business planning, so I want to ask some basic questions. What is the definition of a risk-based reopening of international travel?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Brian Whittle
Businesses are very good at adapting—we have seen that ability to adapt over the past 18 months—and they are desperate to know how they can adapt to meet the safety standards that you have alluded to. I ask this follow-up question on behalf of the industry: what does safe international travel look like?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Brian Whittle
No. I will put it another way. Businesses are looking for a way to work around the issues that Covid brings, and they are looking to the Government to give them an indication of the direction of travel. I am thinking about the long term. Where do you expect the travel industry to go and where will it be when safe travel starts? When can businesses start to open up more, for want of a better expression?
11:00COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Brian Whittle
My final question, which I have been trying to get to, perhaps through a rather strangled route, is about the fact that it is a global problem—not a problem for only Scotland or even just the UK. Where are we on interacting with other nations around the world and the interoperability or compatibility of our approach with other approaches? What practical steps are the Scottish and UK Governments taking to work around the world to address the problem? Where are we in that process?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 2 September 2021
Brian Whittle
I want to raise a couple of issues, one of which is about vaccine passports. We all recognise that tackling the pandemic is a moving feast and that ideas change as we go along. It is not a criticism at all to say that, not all that long ago, vaccine passports were ruled out but, as evidence has come forward, the Government has decided that they should be ruled in.
Against that backdrop, I know from speaking with the music industry, nightclubs and the sports industry that they feel that they have not been consulted as decisions have been made, although the understanding is that it will be businesses’ responsibility to practically implement the policy. I have a couple of questions on that. First, how do you envisage the measure being policed? Secondly, how does the Scottish Government consult with the industries that are involved prior to making such decisions? As my colleague Jim Fairlie suggested in relation to younger people, surely it is much better to have the industries’ input into the decision-making process rather than impose measures on them. How is the consultation process done?