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 693 contributions
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Brian Whittle
Yesterday, the First Minister announced that an extra £100 million had been secured, if you like, out of the Scottish budget to try to tackle Covid. A further £220 million from Westminster has been announced. That is £320 million. What is the ask, if it is not £320 million? How short are we in terms of what the Scottish Government would like to have?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Brian Whittle
I have a specific question for Derek Holliday. We have not really focused on people who are caught in homelessness and addiction. How do we reach out to those communities, bring them into the fold and ensure that they are offered vaccination along with everybody else?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Brian Whittle
I will move on a little bit from my colleague’s questioning on vaccine hesitancy in the groups that we are discussing. I wonder whether there is inertia and a perceived difficulty in accessing vaccination. Perhaps vaccines are seen as another issue that needs to be dealt with among so many other issues that the people who we are discussing have to face. As Alex Rowley said, do we need to take vaccination to the public rather than waiting for them to come for vaccination? Most people seem to be getting their knowledge from social media and fake news, which is undermining trust. Should overcoming that be the approach that we should be taking? That is a question for Derek Holliday.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Brian Whittle
I am interested in the term “vaccine hesitancy”. I wonder whether there is almost an inertia within that, in that the vaccine is perceived as being too difficult to access or to travel to. To extend the conversation that we have had so far, and in relation to behavioural difference, do we need to take the vaccine to the public and to ethnic minority groups rather than wait for them to come to the vaccine, for want of a better expression? We have talked about social media, fake news and how people access information. Do we need to be more proactive in taking the vaccine into communities?
Do we have Dr Carey Lunan with us? I am sorry; she is on the next panel. I have got that wrong. In that case, I will put that question to Magda Czarnecka.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Brian Whittle
I think that Mohammed Razaq wants to comment, too.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Brian Whittle
I want to finish that line of questioning by taking it to its ultimate conclusion. Do we know who the people are who have not taken up the vaccine? Should we approach them to ask why they have not taken up the vaccine so that we can reassure them that it is a safe way to protect themselves and then offer them the vaccine locally? Is that the point that we are getting to? I put that question to Dr Andrea Williamson.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Brian Whittle
That was really helpful, and it leads me on to a point that I raise reasonably regularly. The committee is looking at holding an investigation into the number of excess deaths in Scotland, which is currently sitting at 12 per cent above the average. Those are not all Covid-related deaths. With the emergence of omicron, the question of how we take such decisions becomes even more acute. After all, there is mortality associated with other non-Covid-related conditions. We will have a look at that at some point, and I am sure that the medical profession is already looking at it much more deeply than we will, but—I know that I keep looking ahead—how do we strike a balance and find a route that allows us to get back to some normality with regard to other conditions that have mortality associated with them?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Brian Whittle
Good morning. I will be reasonably brief, because a lot of the points that I wanted to cover have already been discussed.
The self-isolation support grant is there to encourage people to self-isolate, and to ensure that they are not put in a position where they have to make a decision on whether they self-isolate or are able to pay their bills. With that in mind, I want to raise a couple of points with Susan McKellar.
You talked about the impact on those who are on zero-hours contracts or in part-time work, who would perhaps feel the inability to work most keenly. They have an issue with having to prove loss of income, given their particular circumstances. Does that cause a difficulty for them in accessing the grant? At the end of the day, it is about ease of access to the grant.
You also mentioned those who do not fall within the criteria for the grant, but whose income versus expenditure may be finely balanced, as it is for many of us, and whose inability to work would seriously impact their ability to pay their bills. Is the scope of the grant wide enough?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Brian Whittle
I know. That changed how I will ask my questions. The scientific and medical communities are examining the impact of omicron on transmission, the severity of the condition and vaccination effectiveness. How are you considering what measures need to be taken while we wait for that information, given that, as one of my colleagues said, it is likely that transmission rates will increase, which could put stress on the NHS? We have heard that the number of cases in South Africa has gone in two weeks from a few hundred a day to more than 8,000 a day. It will take a little time to find out the exact impacts. Where are we with the thought process?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Brian Whittle
Thank you. I have a final quick question, probably to Sandra MacLeod, about the legislation’s impact on the health boards. How would it impact on your health board?