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 1153 contributions
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Emma Harper
Some retailers now sell vapes to customers who order pizzas to be delivered to them. My understanding is that their age is not verified when vapes are delivered along with the pizza that they have just ordered.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Emma Harper
Good morning, cabinet secretary. A couple of different points have come to mind while I have been listening to all the questions and responses. I am interested in issues around digital technology and innovation, and in how remote and rural areas can or cannot benefit from that.
During Covid, we saw that the use of NHS Near Me and the attend anywhere service was beneficial. How can we harness what we have learned so far from the use of digital technology in order to support remote and rural healthcare?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Emma Harper
Good morning to you—and I see that we also have online engagement this morning.
I declare an interest: I am a registered nurse, and I am the co-convener of the cross-party group on lung health in the Parliament.
I am interested in the data. If you are suggesting that vaping is how people quit smoking, I would comment that I know people who have been vaping for 10 years. Is there a tail-off in some of your data? My understanding is that vaping is not good for the lungs. It causes asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Nicotine is addictive—it is bad for you and it can cause hardening of the arteries. There are some issues around blood pressure increase and so on. I would be interested to hear about data on how long people vape for once they stop smoking cigarettes.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Emma Harper
You have mentioned travel and transport. The Highlands and Islands have a travel scheme whereby patients get travel and accommodation provided for free in order to access healthcare. In other remote places such as Dumfries and Galloway, patients are means tested for travel reimbursement purposes. Is there a plan to review the Highlands and Islands travel scheme to see whether there is potential to apply it to other remote and rural areas where patients are being means tested, as I have described?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Emma Harper
Good morning to you both—actually, it is almost good afternoon. Earlier you probably heard me asking John Dunne about the exclusion of the submissions of 307 respondents to the UK-wide consultation. I am interested in your thoughts on the rationale behind those exclusions. You probably heard me asking about conflicts of interests, for instance.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Emma Harper
Can I ask another wee quick question? John Dunne said that he supports the introduction of a licensing scheme, but that will not go ahead under the bill. What is the problem with having such a scheme?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Emma Harper
The notes in front of me say that
“The UK-wide consultation on the legislation excluded 307 respondents”.
What are your thoughts on that? A conflict of interests is what comes to my mind, but what are your thoughts about the exclusion of 307 respondents?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Emma Harper
We hear feedback about young people vaping before they ever have a cigarette. For young people it is not about quitting smoking. We are seeing pink, blue and green Puff Candy, candyfloss flavour and all that. That seems to be direct targeting of young people so that they start taking nicotine into their lungs.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Emma Harper
With digital connectivity, the resilience of the network, cyberresilience and cybersecurity come to mind. There have been recent issues with NHS Dumfries and Galloway experiencing a cyberattack. Is that more of a challenge in remote and rural areas, or is that the same no matter which health board we are thinking about?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 15 May 2024
Emma Harper
On the point about high quality, I am interested in the work of Henry Dimbleby and Chris van Tulleken on the links between the safety of food and obesity related to ultra-high-processed food. I know that a Government consultation on high fat levels, sugar and salt in food is currently under way. Will the cabinet secretary continue to engage in looking at the evidence on ultra-high-processed food and how it impacts on health in Scotland?