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 1168 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Marie McNair
That is most welcome.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Marie McNair
We have received suggestions about how the money that is no longer needed for mitigation of the two-child limit should be spent. What are your thoughts on that? People such as John Dickie have advocated increasing the Scottish child payment.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Marie McNair
It is really important for DHPs to get to families who are impacted. Access to DHPs used to be through housing benefit, which meant that councils were clear about who needed it, but now that the cap is applied to UC awards, there is a need for effective data. We have already spoken about how important it is that data is shared. Do you have a sense of how that process is working? How could things be improved?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Marie McNair
Good morning. Audit Scotland recommends that the Scottish Government should have a clear strategy to manage risks to the Scottish budget that arise from UK Government decisions on benefit spending. Given the last-minute U-turns that have been made, I am not clear about how you strategise for that. In evidence, Audit Scotland did not seem to be clear on that either. Can I have your thoughts on that point, please?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Marie McNair
It is challenging, but we are still managing to set a balanced budget every year. The U-turn on PIP gave us the Timms review. What influence are we having on that review? Is it alive to the impact that it could have on devolved benefits?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Marie McNair
As we know, the Westminster Parliament debated the bill to remove the two-child limit from universal credit. It took a while to get to that stage, but we got there, which is welcome.
However, because the UK Government did not remove the benefit cap, many families with more than two children will still be denied that support. I am pleased that it is the Scottish Government’s policy to mitigate the benefit cap, but how is that reflected in the budget? As I understand it, the policy will cost more in discretionary housing payments, as more families’ benefits will be capped.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 29 January 2026
Marie McNair
Sure. It is good to get assurance on the data, because that issue has been raised numerous times. It is very difficult to plan budgets when the UK Government is making U-turns every other day and there is uncertainty about proposed cuts to PIP. It is also really hard for the Scottish Fiscal Commission to plan ahead when there is such fluctuation in the policies that are in front of us.
My next question is about terminal illness claims. The Scottish Government has adopted a much more humane approach to claimants with such illnesses, with an enhanced rate being paid for both components. What impact does that have on the forecasts for disability benefits? Is the number of terminal illness claims pretty low on the grand scale of things?
10:15
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 29 January 2026
Marie McNair
I will leave it at that, convener, but I might come in later on if time allows.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 29 January 2026
Marie McNair
Following on from Mr Balfour’s comments about people claiming ADP while they are in employment, I make the point that a lot of folk have partners who can only do part-time work, which means that their household income will be limited.
As happened with my colleague Ms Whitham’s questions, mine have mostly been covered, but I will ask about forecasts. Over a short period, several policy announcements have affected your forecasts, including those on winter heating measures, the two-child policy and the Scottish child payment. Do you want to say anything else about how policy changes can affect your forecasts? You have already covered that, but have you missed anything that you would like to say now?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 29 January 2026
Marie McNair
On you go.
