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: 7 November 2023
Emma Harper
I will make a short comment. The regulations introduce a brand new facility for Scotland. It will be the only specialist adolescent in-patient service in Scotland, and I look forward to its progress. Because it is a completely new facility, I would be interested in the committee continuing to get further information by correspondence or face to face as the matter progresses so that we can inquire about operational issues and the facility’s effectiveness.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Emma Harper
Conversely, if I want to get my shopping delivered to Ecclefechan fae Asda in Carlisle, there would be a price for delivery of the groceries, as well.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Emma Harper
So, it doesnae make economic sense to shop across the border, especially since, as I have just said, the price of alcohol in Hawick is the same as the price in Berwick. I guess that debunking that booze-cruising myth is something that we should be doing.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Emma Harper
Foxgrove is intended to be a medium-secure care facility. Is that right?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Emma Harper
I have a final question. Foxgrove is aimed at young people between the ages of 12 and 18. We need to make sure that the care is age appropriate, so that we are not just transferring care from an adult facility and lifting and shifting to deliver and provide for young people. Will the care be targeted at the specific age of the young person?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Emma Harper
I have a quick supplementary question. We went into lockdown on 23 March 2020, just two years after the policy was introduced. What effect did the pandemic have on your research and on alcohol consumption? Tara Shivaji mentioned women in response to Tess White’s question. I am interested in that area, too, but we have not talked about the pandemic. Did that have an impact on your research on alcohol consumption?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Emma Harper
I know that there is a lot of work going on regarding sales, marketing and advertising. I am interested in following what is being done in Ireland and the evidence for segregating sales.
I want to pick up on what Clare said about cross-border purchasing, because there needs to be some myth busting and debunking of the idea that folk are driving fae Ecclefechan tae Carlisle to pick up whatever alcohol they want. If they did that, they would have to buy 33 bottles of vodka to save the five quid on petrol that it costs to go the 20 miles fae Ecclefechan tae Carlisle. Also, my understanding is that the price of alcohol is the same in Hawick and Berwick, so if you live in Coldstream you would be crossing the border to go for your shopping anyway. There are not the booze cruises that keep being touted.
I would be interested to hear about the research that is debunking the myths about cross-border purchases. Can you tell us about that?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 7 November 2023
Emma Harper
Okay. Thank you.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
So you would promote a bill that supports the establishment of equity for social care workers, equivalent to national health service workers. I suppose that that is what I am driving at. If we are able to demonstrate in the bill that care workers will be given parity, and if the national care service was able to deliver a pathway that increased the visibility of social care, which is the career choice of some people—you are absolutely right that it is predominantly women and that it is not always full-time work—that would be something that you would support.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
I have a quick supplementary question.
Cara Stevenson said that something needs to be done now. My understanding is that the Scottish Government published a winter preparedness plan on 24 October, which is a joint publication by the Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care and Councillor Paul Kelly, who is COSLA’s health spokesperson. The plan has eight priorities for care and how we support people over the winter.
The development of the bill is for the future, and the winter preparedness plan is action that is being taken right now. Do the eight priorities cover ensuring care at home as much as possible, consistent messaging to the public and supporting staff? There is a focus on recruitment, retention and wellbeing of staff as part of those priorities. I am interested in the priorities that will be delivered over this winter. If we reflect on what works, those priorities could go into the future regulations for the national care service bill. Should we also consider that? The winter preparedness plan is being delivered right now, and its priorities could be reflected on for the future.