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 631 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 December 2025
Beatrice Wishart
Section 28 of the bill sets out changes to the 1996 act in relation to the register of authorised persons. Those provisions will require some deer management practitioners, such as non-certified stalkers, to make changes—in effect, the provisions mandate training. Some in the deer sector have expressed concern that the transition to mandatory training could result in a reduction in the number of deer stalkers. For example, older farmers might decide to stop deer management. The Scottish Government has stated that it is engaging with stakeholders and will continue to do so when creating the secondary legislation on the detail of the training scheme. My intention with amendment 249 is to ensure that there is a commitment to the transitional timeframe and that support for the transition is set out in the bill.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
Beatrice Wishart
It is about whether the derogation would lead to general herd reduction and people having smaller herds, and the cumulative effect of multiple herds being reduced.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
Beatrice Wishart
In its response, Shetland Islands Council welcomed the derogation for small herds but flagged up its concern that the limit of 10 calves would lead to a general herd reduction in the islands, which would obviously have an on-going impact on the wider supply chain. I also note that an impact assessment was done. Can you expand on that?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
Beatrice Wishart
Part 2 of the bill introduces a new regulatory power relating to nature restoration. Without a non-regression clause, there is a risk that regulations could be weakened by future Governments, standards could be lowered through secondary legislation and the overall environmental protection regime could become less robust over time. That is particularly important because, although nature targets are long term, regulations might change more frequently.
My amendment 196 seeks to address that by ensuring that any regulations that are made under part 2 can only maintain or improve existing environmental standards. That non-regression safeguard ensures continuity and prevents backsliding at the implementation stage.
I note that other members have also lodged non-regression amendments. That reflects the concerns that others have alluded to and the need for such amendments. My amendment uses the phrase “maintain or improve”, which reflects the standard that is used in other major environmental statutes and provides a clear, legally recognisable threshold.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
Beatrice Wishart
Did the impact assessment come out with that information?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
Beatrice Wishart
You mentioned Orkney. Could you expand on what arrangements you have come to with people on the islands?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
Beatrice Wishart
The SRUC pointed out that the changes will be felt differently in different parts of Scotland. Orkney and Shetland are two separate groups of islands. I notice that Shetland Islands Council raised concerns about a lack of regard for the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018. Could you address those points?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
Beatrice Wishart
Thank you.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
Beatrice Wishart
Part 2 of the bill introduces a new regulatory power relating to nature restoration. Without a non-regression clause, there is a risk that regulations could be weakened by future Governments, standards could be lowered through secondary legislation and the overall environmental protection regime could become less robust over time. That is particularly important because, although nature targets are long term, regulations might change more frequently.
My amendment 196 seeks to address that by ensuring that any regulations that are made under part 2 can only maintain or improve existing environmental standards. That non-regression safeguard ensures continuity and prevents backsliding at the implementation stage.
I note that other members have also lodged non-regression amendments. That reflects the concerns that others have alluded to and the need for such amendments. My amendment uses the phrase “maintain or improve”, which reflects the standard that is used in other major environmental statutes and provides a clear, legally recognisable threshold.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 19 November 2025
Beatrice Wishart
Good morning. Due to time constraints, I will generally speak only to my own amendments in each group.
The bill places new obligations on Scottish ministers. However, without a strengthened biodiversity duty, there is a risk of the delivery burden falling disproportionately on a small number of national bodies. My amendment 165 would amend the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 to require public bodies to facilitate the delivery of the biodiversity strategy and statutory targets. By explicitly linking the biodiversity duty to the new statutory targets relating to nature and the Scottish biodiversity strategy, the amendment would ensure that the whole public sector is aligned behind the bill’s implementation. That would reduce the risk of the bill becoming a top-down framework with no delivery mechanism, which would undermine the credibility of Scotland’s targets and the ability to meet global commitments.
I move amendment 165.
