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 774 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
George Adam
Just so that I get my head around it, because I am not an Edinburgh MSP, currently you have the supercomputer and the infrastructure and everything else, but with the advances in technology and AI—we all use it now in various forms—being apparent, you need to go to the next generation. That is what you explained earlier, more or less, it seems to me. You have not heard this today much, Sir Peter, but I am quite happy to back you in your endeavours and support you in any way I can to ensure that that goes to Edinburgh.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
George Adam
Finally, I want to ask a question of Sir Peter. I will not ask you about your salary, because that has been done to death today. I was going to, but we have talked about that quite a bit.
I have been on this committee—people are fed up with hearing me saying this—on and off since I first entered the Parliament in 2011. During the independence referendum campaign, I kept getting told that, if we got independence, universities such as Edinburgh might lose a whole stack of investment in research, because you are one of the universities in the world that excel in research. The UK Government has cut one of your programmes: the £800 million supercomputer programme. What effect has that had on your university? I assume that that programme would have generated quite a bit of work for those in your establishment.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
George Adam
It is important for the record that we know that compulsory redundancies will be the very last option. As you will know, Professor Miller, when these things happen, we end up with all kinds of conspiracy theories and people believe that a lot more is going to happen.
I am interested in what you and Professor Rigby said about the funding shortfall with regard to the flexibility that you are looking at, because you both recruit from the colleges. For various reasons including Covid, there was a drop in the numbers. Professor Rigby, you talked about a better way of spending the money that is already there. I like the sound of that. Professor Miller, you talked about more flexible examples. Can you give us more detail on that? I am a great believer that, if there is money in the system, we should use it in the best way possible to deliver what we are trying to deliver.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
George Adam
Professor Rigby, do you have anything to say on better ways of spending the money that is available?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
George Adam
I am sorry to interrupt, but are you talking about the flexibility that James Miller spoke about? Might that involve having a conversation with the SFC and saying, “This is what happened in the past, but we think that we can do X, Y and Z in the future”?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
George Adam
Good morning. I understand the work that Professor Rigby and Professor Miller do with regard to nursing in particular. I have a daughter who was waiting for a place at UWS but decided to have two more children instead. She may be back at a later date.
Professor Miller, I usually talk about the virtues of UWS, all the great work that you do in the area and how important the institution is to Paisley in particular, but also to the areas that are served by your other campuses. However, I have to ask this question. Like Miles Briggs, I have had constituents and people who are employed by you coming to me and saying that you are looking at 75 full-time equivalent reductions with a cut of, I think, £6.2 million. You are going through a 45-day consultation and you have not ruled out compulsory redundancies. There has been, almost, a perfect storm since you came in the door at UWS.
How has UWS got to this position? What are the main things that have contributed to it? How do we go forward from here? Many people, including the unions and people who work for you, have a lot of concern about what is going on.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
George Adam
I am not getting into the politics of it, because it was used as a big stick to hit me with in 2014, but we still seem to be in a difficult situation with the UK Government.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 May 2025
George Adam
Can you understand the situation in Scotland? Radio Clyde was the first commercial station outwith London—I think that it started in 1970—and that created a whole generation of broadcasters and talent who probably would not otherwise have had that career and opportunity. For young people trying to get into broadcasting, radio was often used as a way in, but that will not happen in Scotland any more. It will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for someone to do that.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 May 2025
George Adam
I am extremely interested in that, because that proves that there is a market. STV is doing that from an advertising point of view. The chief executive has said that it allows advertising throughout the day. Mornings on the radio are very good for advertisers, and they can be on television in the evening. However, that is not what we hear from local radio stations as they network more and more—they say that they cannot sustain that. That is the argument. Why would a major player such as STV say that it is doable when we get a completely different story from local stations? As the regulator, what have you done? You are part of the reason why we do not have Scottish voices on Scottish radio at the moment.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 May 2025
George Adam
I have a couple, if that is okay.
Good morning. It will come as no shock to you that I welcome the £65 million for drama over the next three years, but why can we not have both? There is no way that you will replace a long-term serialised drama with six episodes of three shows. It will not be the same level of work or the same guarantee of work. We heard about that from members of the cast and technical staff. You will not create new technical staff and give writers and actors give their first opportunity. It just will not have the same effect.
Yes, television is changing, but we are not having this conversation about “EastEnders”, and its ratings have tanked over time. Why does it always seem to be that we in Scotland are the ones impacted? Why can we not have both? People will not be having this conversation at the BBC down in London.