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 852 contributions
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
Alexander Stewart
It has been an excellent session. You have been candid about where you are in each of your organisations and how you feel. We have discussed long-term finances from local government, which is probably still the most significant funder of many aspects of the culture sector in Scotland, and you have talked about managing decline and fighting for survival. I had the opportunity to spend 18 years in local government—from 1999 to 2017—and during that time I said similar things when I was in that sector and was trying to manage where we were. Since I came here in 2016, the Scottish Government has come forward with action plans, strategies and working groups. I am sure that you have all participated in those, but it would be interesting to hear whether you feel that you have been listened to.
What is the future? From today’s meeting, it sounds quite bleak, in reality, but do your organisations see a way forward that you want to and can achieve? You have talked about other parts of the globe and things that are done differently. It has been said that we punch above our weight. I think that Liam Sinclair said that Scotland gets it and understands when it comes to culture, but there is obviously still a massive gap that we need to fill. How can we manage to fill that gap and continue to be world leading? There is no question but that we are world leading in many sectors. We are proud of that and our culture is a strong part of our identity in Scotland, but we need to see the future.
What is the future? Do you believe that you are actually being listened to and given opportunities among all the strategies, plans and working groups?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Alexander Stewart
In the report, you talk about the actions of Governments across the nations when it comes to food that has a high fat, sugar and salt content, and the divergence that there might be in that regard in future. That might well create real difficulties for certain businesses and certain manufacturing or supply bases, which might have to deal with different processes in different locations. Is that simply a possibility, or is it a real issue that will become much more apparent as time progresses?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Alexander Stewart
I have none, either, but I am delighted to return to the committee. I sat on its predecessor committee for three years in the previous session, so I look forward to our work, convener.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Alexander Stewart
I will ask a supplementary question. You have talked about data, which is vitally important. Trade associations and federations might collect data for their sectors. How well do you manage with that? Some sectors are very proactive in ensuring that they have data for their sector, but others do not seem to have that robustness. It is about trying to manage that so that there is much better understanding. As you have identified, in different parts of the country, some federations and organisations are much more robust at putting that together.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Alexander Stewart
The possibility of different things happening in different locations might become a real issue for the market and for suppliers and consumers, depending on the approach that is taken and how that is planned. It will be interesting to see what data you collate on that in the future.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Alexander Stewart
There is a lot more work to be done. It is quite evident that the numbers are stark for the accessible and adapted properties that are out there in the market for people who use wheelchairs or have mobility issues.
We should write to the Scottish Government, highlighting the stakeholder submissions that we have received and urging it to review the existing wheelchair accessible housing target guidance. It is important to ask whether it can consider national planning obligations on house builders and private developers for a minimum number of wheelchair accessible homes and whether it accepts the case for a national definition of a wheelchair accessible home. We can ask questions on and look into those areas to attempt to unravel the issue.
There is obviously a massive gap in the market and those people are not being catered for as they perhaps should be by housing developers and organisations that look after housing processes.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Alexander Stewart
We could seek more information on fertility treatment for single women. I suggest that we write to the Fertility Network Scotland, the British Fertility Society and Fertility Scotland to seek their views on the action that the petition calls for. We also have the opportunity to write to the national fertility group to seek an update on the work to understand the capacity implications of any future expansion of access to NHS IVF treatment for single women, as you suggested in your opening remarks, convener.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Alexander Stewart
It would be useful for us to write to Road Safety Scotland, IAM Road Smart, the RAC Foundation, the Road Safety Foundation and the road safety charity Brake to seek their views on how effective Transport Scotland’s road safety improvement schemes and road safety campaigns are likely to be in reducing road casualties, and whether measures should be put in place during the period before dualling work is completed. They will all have views and opinions on that, and it would be useful for us to clarify those.
I was impressed by the presentation that we had from the petitioner and others, and this is a major issue that continues to receive a huge amount of publicity, almost weekly. There is much more that the committee can do to progress the aims of the petitioner and the community.
10:30Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Alexander Stewart
We have had an extensive response. I think that we should close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders. The Scottish Government considers both matters that are raised in the petition to be operational matters, which in itself creates issues. The SCTS provides an overview of the most commonly used court procedures and rules on its website, and staff provide assistance to people engaging in such actions. The SCTS has adopted the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman’s model complaints handling procedure and provides general information on the procedures on its website.
In reality, the SCTS is already doing a number of things to try to manage the situation, and I do not believe that there is any further action that we can take with reference to the petition at this time.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Alexander Stewart
I thank Tess White for her evidence, which has highlighted some areas of real concern. I think that we could further investigate some areas. I suggest that we write to the Scottish Government requesting an update on how it is progressing recommendation 26 of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee’s report, which Tess White spoke about. We should also ask whether the Scottish Government plans to amend section 24 of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 and request that its report and options appraisal to expand mother and baby unit capacity be shared with the committee when they are published in autumn 2023. I think that that would give us much more information about where we are and would help to progress the petition.