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 1135 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
My final question is for all the witnesses, but particularly for Fiona McIntyre.
Is it clear what should happen in the unlikely but possible event of complications during the assisted dying process?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Fantastic; thank you. I ask because the bills are different, and if someone objects to a bill in one jurisdiction, it would not necessarily mean that they would object to another bill in a different one, because bills can be written badly or well.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Should the bill say that we must talk about the options for palliative care whenever someone requests assisted dying?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I declare my interest as a practising NHS GP and, obviously, as a contributor to the NHS pension scheme.
I have a number of questions that I would like to put on the record and to which I would like answers from ministers, where appropriate. I would like to know what the anticipated financial impact of the amendments are on NHS staff pensions and, more importantly, on the overall sustainability of the pension schemes. What is the long-term strategy for ensuring the financial sustainability of NHS pension schemes in Scotland, given the rise in contribution rates? How do the amendments align with broader public sector pension reforms in Scotland and how do they compare to similar changes across the rest of the UK? To what extent would the changes to pension contributions and retirement flexibilities influence NHS staff recruitment and retention in Scotland? Can we explain the rationale behind the introduction of the final pay controls and what impact they will have on pensions for NHS staff who are near retirement age?
My final comment is that, with the changes that we see here, people who use the NHS pension scheme are totally and utterly unable to easily see their pension and to understand what is happening and what tax implications their pensions might have. That is important, because we are at a time when our NHS is on its knees and we need to make it easier for staff to do more work. However, what can happen is that staff who do more work will be landed retrospectively with a huge tax bill because of pension contributions, which means that they have, in effect, paid to go to work and to help us in our NHS. There are simple changes that can be made to stop that happening, and I urge the Scottish Government to look at those, both to make that easier and to allow people to see their pensions, as I have been contacted by a number of constituents who are unable to do so.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
This is a genuinely fascinating session.
I would like to speak more about the role of the courts. Dr Earle, I will start with you. I will specifically address the slippery slope argument that we began discussing earlier. I want to take that to its extreme and to hear your opinion on it. Suppose that I have diabetes, that I decide to go down the assisted dying route and that I can argue in court that I am being discriminated against as I am not allowed to do so for that condition. Obviously, that is an extreme. Do you foresee a way in which we could slowly move from the position of having fairly tightly worded reasons for being able to access assisted dying to the inclusion of conditions such as diabetes, on a rights basis?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Yes—for people throughout the process, really.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Thank you.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
[Interruption.] I apologise to Dr Neal, but we are really tight for time, so I will ask a question directly and perhaps you can roll the answer that you were going to give into that.
From what we have already heard, it seems that, if the bill goes through, the will of the Parliament is very much to have a tight definition. Given that, would it be appropriate for the courts to override the will of the Parliament in that way? Lynda Towers talked about a sunset clause earlier, but would a five-year sunset clause allow the Parliament to look at slippage, at changes and at court cases and ask whether that is what it wanted, or whether things have changed? Is that why we need a sunset clause?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Yes.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I declare an interest as a practising national health service general practitioner and as the chair of the medical advisory group that advised on the bill.
I am interested in what is being said about capacity. As a doctor, I judge capacity all the time. That can involve anything from giving a drug that could potentially kill somebody to a decision on the need for surgery. In the case of surgery, we have to assess whether someone can consent to the piece of work being done. Is it appropriate that a doctor’s ability to make those judgments in all other circumstances is also used in the bill?
