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
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Eddie Follan, you, too, have talked about the social determinants of health. We have touched on housing, poverty, education and employment. Do you think that it is reasonable for a member’s bill, rather than a Government bill, to legislate for and address those huge determinants of health?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
My next question is for the whole panel. If the bill were to come into force and put the individual’s rights into law, much as the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 gave people the right to receive in-patient and out-patient care within 12 weeks, would that not bolster your ability to maintain your budgets or even to have them increased in order to help people?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I have a final question for Dr Galea-Singer, although I do not know whether she will be able to answer it. You talked about diagnosis in one of your first answers. Given that we are at stage 1, changes can be made to the bill. What wording would you prefer to see in the bill instead of references to diagnosis?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 March 2025
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Could you write to us about that?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 March 2025
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I declare an interest as a practising NHS GP.
I will start by looking at diagnosis. One of the things that the committee has focused on is the definition that could be used for the diagnosis of drug addiction. We looked at that with the last panel of witnesses. The committee is trying to establish whether there is a definition that could be used. Is the definition in the bill tight enough?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 March 2025
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
We certainly have that picture, but when it comes to writing something, we have to put the words down and decide what we are doing. If “addiction” and “dependence” are too vague, what should we put down? What does the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland think that we should put down? Should we talk about harmful patterns of use? Should we put down something about repetition, maladaptive behaviour and an increase in severe dependence? Do you want to see those things in the bill?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 March 2025
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Dr Williams, the bill sets out that a GP must say that somebody needs treatment and must give them options. I know that the RCGPS has specific worries about GPs doing that.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 March 2025
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
What measurable outcomes are we looking at for the Thistle centre?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 March 2025
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Could we use those outcome measures in the bill?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 March 2025
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
This is more of an open question, but I will put it first to you, Dr Shivaji. Do you feel that establishing an individual’s right to treatment would potentially improve outcomes?
