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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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 27 March 2025
Collette Stevenson
The question is, that amendment 1035 be agreed to. Are we agreed?
Members: No.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 27 March 2025
Collette Stevenson
Good morning, and welcome to the 10th meeting in 2025 of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. We have received no apologies this morning.
Today is the second day of the committee’s consideration of the Housing (Scotland) Bill at stage 2. I welcome Paul McLennan, Minister for Housing, and his officials to the meeting. I remind the Scottish Government officials that they are here to assist the minister during the stage 2 debate but that they are not permitted to participate in the debate. For that reason, members should not direct any questions to them.
We will also be joined throughout the meeting by other MSPs who will be speaking to their amendments.
Members should have with them a copy of the bill, the marshalled list and the groupings. Those documents are available on the bill page on the Scottish Parliament’s website for anyone who is observing. I will not explain for a second time the procedure that we will follow during our stage 2 consideration, you will be pleased to know. I remind members that interventions should be brief. It is up to the member speaking to an amendment whether to accept an intervention.
Section 41—Duties of relevant bodies in relation to homelessness
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 27 March 2025
Collette Stevenson
There will be a division.
For
Doris, Bob (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn) (SNP)
Griffin, Mark (Central Scotland) (Lab)
MacDonald, Gordon (Edinburgh Pentlands) (SNP)
McNair, Marie (Clydebank and Milngavie) (SNP)
O’Kane, Paul (West Scotland) (Lab)
Stevenson, Collette (East Kilbride) (SNP)
Abstentions
Balfour, Jeremy (Lothian) (Con)
Smith, Liz (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 27 March 2025
Collette Stevenson
The question is, that amendment 1039 be agreed to. Are we agreed?
Members: No.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 27 March 2025
Collette Stevenson
The question is, that amendment 1037 be agreed to. Are we agreed?
Members: No.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 27 March 2025
Collette Stevenson
The question is, that amendment 1038 be agreed to. Are we agreed?
Members: No.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 20 March 2025
Collette Stevenson
Our next item of business is the committee’s consideration of the Housing (Scotland) Bill at stage 2. I welcome Paul McLennan, the Minister for Housing, and his officials to the meeting.
I remind the officials that they are here to assist the minister during the stage 2 debate. They are not permitted to participate in the debate and, for that reason, members should not direct any questions to them.
We will also be joined throughout the meeting by other MSPs who will be speaking to their amendments. I give a very warm welcome to all of them.
I will briefly explain the procedure that we will be following during today’s proceedings for anyone watching. Members should have with them a copy of the bill, the marshalled list and the groupings of amendments. Those documents are available on the bill’s web page on the Scottish Parliament’s website for anyone who is observing.
I will call each amendment individually, in the order of the marshalled list. The member who lodged the amendment should either move it or say “not moved” when it is called. If that member does not move it, any other member present may do so. The groupings of amendments set out the amendments in the order in which they will be debated. There will be one debate on each group of amendments.
In each debate, I will call the member who lodged the first amendment in the group to speak to and move that amendment and to speak to all the other amendments in the group. I will then call other members with amendments in the group to speak to, but not move, their amendments and to speak to other amendments in the group, if they wish.
I will then call other members who wish to speak in the debate. Members who wish to speak should indicate that by catching my or the clerk’s attention. I will then call the minister, if he has not already spoken in the debate.
Finally, I will call the member who moved the first amendment in the group to wind up and to indicate whether he or she wishes to press the amendment or to withdraw it. If the amendment is pressed, I will put the question on the amendment. If a member wishes to withdraw an amendment after it has been moved and debated, I will ask whether any member present objects. If there is an objection, I will immediately put the question on the amendment. Later amendments in a group are not debated again when they are reached. If they are moved, I will put the question on them straight away.
If there is a division, only committee members are entitled to vote. Voting is done by a show of hands and it is important that members keep their hands raised clearly until the clerk has recorded their names. If there is a tie, I must exercise a casting vote.
The committee is required to consider and decide on each section of the bill, and I will put the question on each of those provisions at the appropriate point. We will now begin our consideration of the amendments.
Before Section 41
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 20 March 2025
Collette Stevenson
I remind everyone that they need to be brief and concise with their interventions.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 20 March 2025
Collette Stevenson
There will be a division.
For
Doris, Bob (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn) (SNP)
Griffin, Mark (Central Scotland) (Lab)
MacDonald, Gordon (Edinburgh Pentlands) (SNP)
McNair, Marie (Clydebank and Milngavie) (SNP)
O’Kane, Paul (West Scotland) (Lab)
Stevenson, Collette (East Kilbride) (SNP)
Abstentions
Balfour, Jeremy (Lothian) (Con)
Smith, Liz (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 20 March 2025
Collette Stevenson
As no other members wish to come in on that point, I invite the minister to speak.
