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 987 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Galloway and Ayrshire National Park Proposal
Meeting date: 11 June 2025
Elena Whitham
Do you think that other things had been happening at the same time that ended up making this feel very messy? The Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill has been going through, as have been the changes that we spoke about in the previous question session and the changes that are happening with agricultural payments. The convener also mentioned that permitted development rights might be coming into question. Do you think that a lot was going on and it felt as if the national park would be something else on top, so the vision could not be seen?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 11 June 2025
Elena Whitham
I want to explore the proposal in the bill to have a strengthened duty on public bodies to facilitate the implementation of the park plans. We have heard from both national park authorities that they believe that that is a positive move. The Cairngorms National Park Authority said that
“‘Have regard to’ is a fairly passive term”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 2 April 2025; c 23.]
and that having a duty to help to implement the plans would be a positive move. However, we heard concern from some stakeholders that that duty could run into conflict with a public body’s own statutory duties and functions. What would the Scottish Government like to see fulfilled in practice with that measure, and what changes do you think that that will lead to?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Galloway and Ayrshire National Park Proposal
Meeting date: 11 June 2025
Elena Whitham
Some of my questions have been touched on by the convener.
I will say from the get-go that I first heard about the Galloway national park back in 2016, nine years ago. I was a local councillor in East Ayrshire in 2018, when that council took what I viewed as a positive decision to support the national park after doing extensive public consultation on the back of what the Galloway National Park Association was doing.
The idea of the park did end up feeling like a bolt out of the blue for some sectors, including farming, forestry and renewables. We seemed to get to a point where those sectors became galvanised after suddenly realising that the park might have an impact on them and feeling that their voices had not been heard in the mix. I do not think that anyone can apportion the blame for that to the people from the Galloway National Park Association, because they set out their vision and took it out to people and they consulted quite extensively from 2016 onwards.
Having listened to the other members around the table and yourself, I am wondering how we can ensure that sectoral issues and any further proposals that affect real people on the ground who are farming or who are part of forestry or renewables do not get to the stage where it feels as though people are getting entrenched. There was a groundswell of support, but all of a sudden it got to a crunch point where it felt as if there was not, and some sectors felt that they were not being heard. How do we deal with that? How do we overcome challenges from those sectors to get to a positive conclusion?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 11 June 2025
Elena Whitham
Should a requirement be put into the 2000 act for park authorities to consult a wider suite of public bodies on their plans? Right now, it feels like consultation is restricted to local authorities. Although I think that they all feed in in some way, should the duty be explicitly widened to include further public bodies?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Galloway and Ayrshire National Park Proposal
Meeting date: 11 June 2025
Elena Whitham
Some of my questions have been touched on by the convener.
I will say from the get-go that I first heard about the Galloway national park back in 2016, nine years ago. I was a local councillor in East Ayrshire in 2018, when that council took what I viewed as a positive decision to support the national park after doing extensive public consultation on the back of what the Galloway National Park Association was doing.
The idea of the park did end up feeling like a bolt out of the blue for some sectors, including farming, forestry and renewables. We seemed to get to a point where those sectors became galvanised after suddenly realising that the park might have an impact on them and feeling that their voices had not been heard in the mix. I do not think that anyone can apportion the blame for that to the people from the Galloway National Park Association, because they set out their vision and took it out to people and they consulted quite extensively from 2016 onwards.
Having listened to the other members around the table and yourself, I am wondering how we can ensure that sectoral issues and any further proposals that affect real people on the ground who are farming or who are part of forestry or renewables do not get to the stage where it feels as though people are getting entrenched. There was a groundswell of support, but all of a sudden it got to a crunch point where it felt as if there was not, and some sectors felt that they were not being heard. How do we deal with that? How do we overcome challenges from those sectors to get to a positive conclusion?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Care Inspectorate
Meeting date: 10 June 2025
Elena Whitham
Let me explore a little bit further how, as an organisation, you are able to track, monitor and evaluate quality improvement. We have heard about some of the tools that you already use, such as self-evaluation forms and using complaints themselves as tools. What other tools do you have to track, monitor and evaluate improvement?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Food Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 10 June 2025
Elena Whitham
It is really good to hear that you have been able to feed in your concerns and that the linkages are robust in relation to what you expect the draft plan to say.
There was also a bit of worry about where your role stopped and the Scottish Food Commission’s role started and how that was going to be managed. Do you feel that there is now a clear division of responsibilities there?
11:30Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Care Inspectorate
Meeting date: 10 June 2025
Elena Whitham
It is helpful for the committee to understand that.
Thinking about the most recent corporate plan, can you identify any improvements in social care that you have been part of and have helped to drive forward?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Food Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 10 June 2025
Elena Whitham
We have heard several times this morning that the resourcing is very tight. Are you satisfied that no extra workload will be added for you, given the resourcing that you have? You described it as being about working in parallel without extra pressure being added.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Food Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 10 June 2025
Elena Whitham
That is very helpful. We have heard this morning about your wonderful food crime unit and how effective it is. We would not want anything to take away from your ability to do that work. Thank you.
