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 15 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
New Petitions
Meeting date: 8 October 2025
Davy Russell
I suggest that we close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that the Scottish Government intends to introduce a bill in the next parliamentary session to initiate a programme of legal aid reform. The committee could make only limited progress on the petition in the time remaining in this session.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 8 October 2025
Davy Russell
Education is a public service. Is there not another public body, such as the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, that could take on that role? It is a public service that is being provided and there is a flaw in the public service. That is the PSO’s role.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
New Petitions
Meeting date: 8 October 2025
Davy Russell
Although it is a very emotive issue, I propose that we close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that the Scottish Government has been clear in its view that it is for the EIS to decide whether to update the teaching resource. Given the clear view that has been expressed by the Government, the committee is limited in the action that it can take on the petition, as the matter is more appropriately addressed at an operational level by the EIS.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 8 October 2025
Davy Russell
I have an interest in this matter, as it is a constituency matter. I agree with everything that Jackie Baillie said. It is about not only the parents but the clinicians and the public. It is an emotive subject for citizens in Lanarkshire. My inbox is full every time there is mention of the unit closing. It is an emotive subject and needs to be looked into further. At minimum, the information needs to be reviewed.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Healthcare
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Davy Russell
Another theme is that of diagnostic and treatment pathways. We need to close the loop. I have a case on my desk of one of my constituents who was diagnosed with cancer and had a mastectomy in 2017. She is still waiting now, in 2025, for reconstructive surgery, which is totally unacceptable. What mechanisms are in place to close the loop? Reconstruction is a vital part of treatment and the woman’s mental health is at risk in this case.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Healthcare
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Davy Russell
You mentioned that you were in Japan looking at AI systems, cabinet secretary. Please tell me that they were not from Fujitsu.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Healthcare
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Davy Russell
The petitions that have been lodged during this session of Parliament have highlighted gaps in capacity, skills and training, and have touched on lengthy waiting times. You are trying to catch up with backlogs and reduce waiting lists. I know that NHS Lanarkshire is using overtime, which is all well and good, but how do you maintain the necessary level of skills and training? Does that come at the expense of providing the service and working on the backlogs?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Davy Russell
I totally agree with what Rachael Hamilton said. In a former life, I was the director of roads, transport and environmental services for Glasgow and, every now and again, we had the sort of campaigns that she suggests, working with Keep Scotland Beautiful and Zero Waste Scotland. Those worked to a reasonable extent, but education is also really important. We need to get to the kids so that they chastise their parents for throwing stuff out of the car window. We did not have the budget to carry through on the educational part, which links to what Rachael said. It is all right to have processes for cleaning and emptying bins, but that is not where we need to be. We need education so that people do not do litter: that is the bottom line. We need a mindset change, and the only way to get that is through education.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Healthcare
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Davy Russell
How vigorously do you monitor the output? For instance, a very common theme on the doorsteps was about waiting two years for a cataract operation. Say NHS Lanarkshire—my health board—has capacity for 100 cataract operations per week, whereas although NHS Fife has a budget for 100 per week it does only 80. How do you monitor that and co-ordinate the movement of people to take up the spare capacity in that other regional health board?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Healthcare
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Davy Russell
We see that mental health services continue to operate under high pressure from growing demand. What are you doing to focus resources on the prevention of poor mental health? To put it another way, what are you doing to promote positive mental wellbeing in children and adults?
