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 1017 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Dog Theft (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 May 2025
Elena Whitham
I am interested in the question of relationship breakdown. Will you advise the committee why the exception to the offence regarding relationship breakdown in section 1(2) of the bill has been included?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Dog Theft (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 May 2025
Elena Whitham
Thank you.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Dog Theft (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 May 2025
Elena Whitham
Finally, Mr Golden, could you advise the committee of how you arrived at the figures in the financial memorandum accompanying the bill?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Dog Theft (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 May 2025
Elena Whitham
In the evidence that we heard from the Dogs Trust, Police Scotland and the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, they felt that the bill needed to be strengthened regarding domestic abuse. We also heard from the Crown Office that it felt that the existing domestic abuse legislation, as you have narrated, would be enough to deal with that situation.
I understand that, in relation to the United Kingdom Government, there is a proposal called Ruby’s law, which was brought forward because of a gap in the legislation in relation to the Pet Abduction Act 2024 and the family law concerning domestic abuse. Ruby’s law seeks to remedy that gap. I do not know whether you have had any regard to those proposals. Incidentally, in that case, it was a cat and not a dog, but it is the same issue of an abuser perpetuating domestic abuse against a victim using a pet.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Dog Theft (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 May 2025
Elena Whitham
That was helpful, because I was going to ask you about underreporting. You have answered that question, so thank you.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Dog Theft (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 May 2025
Elena Whitham
The issue of domestic abuse when a perpetrator seeks to use a pet to control somebody and prevent them from leaving is probably beyond the scope of what your bill sets out to do. However, we need to think about the unintended consequences of not recognising where pets can sit in relation to domestic abuse. I am glad to hear that you are open to continuing that discussion.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 May 2025
Elena Whitham
Good morning to everyone. I am interested in understanding what is happening from a policy coherence perspective—for example, ensuring that we are not operating in silos. Sarah Cowie from the NFUS has already touched on that. I would like to understand what needs to be considered in relation to the alignment of nature targets with the targets and policies in other areas to ensure that we are being effective and that we are providing regulatory certainty. We also need to be able to be fleet of foot to address things as they arrive.
Who wants to comment on that first? I have heard several comments this morning about consistency and alignment.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Employment Rights Bill (UK Parliament Legislation)
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Elena Whitham
COSLA’s submission says that COSLA would request that all directly employed local government employees in the sector be removed from the scope of any negotiation arrangements. How would that work in practice? Thinking about the parity of esteem and everything that has been sought, could removing local government employees working in social care from the negotiations work? What would be the consequences? I know that from COSLA’s perspective it is about the job-matching processes in local authority areas. Could we explore that a bit?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Elena Whitham
Thank you.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Elena Whitham
Good morning. I am interested in exploring some issues relating to the “National Collaborative Charter of Rights for People Affected by Substance Use” that was developed by the national collaborative and everyone who played a part in it. More generally, I am also interested in the enforcement of individuals’ rights and how all that interplays with the bill. The cabinet secretary will be very aware of the launch of the charter of rights, which states:
“Once the proposed Scottish Human Rights Bill becomes law these internationally recognised rights”
as set out in the charter of rights
“will also become enforceable in our tribunals and courts”.
Evidence from the Scottish Human Rights Commission noted that some of the rights that the charter of rights sets out are not yet enforceable in domestic law, because they have not been incorporated, while Audit Scotland noted that people are still facing significant barriers to getting support. We know that that is due to stigma and limited access to services in rural areas, for example. How would the bill as set out complement the charter of rights for people who are affected by substance use, or could it come into conflict with it?
