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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 2406 contributions
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 13 March 2025
Stephen Kerr
Okay—that was very helpful. You have been a very good witness and I wish that we could have had longer with you, but there we go. I had better let someone else speak.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 13 March 2025
Stephen Kerr
In your paper, you say something very interesting, which is kind of tangential to what we are talking about, about the word “reset”. We have been using that word a lot—in fact, the UK Labour Government has been using it as well—and it obviously carries a lot of heavy meaning. However, you clearly say:
“The term ‘reset’ is ill-defined and widely rejected in EU circles.”
Do talk a bit more about that.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 13 March 2025
Stephen Kerr
I think, from your observation, that Humpty Dumpty was probably a politician, and we all know what happened to Humpty Dumpty. [Laughter.] That is very relevant.
In the same paragraph of your submission to which I referred, you talk about
“opportunities for cooperation in new areas”.
Having read the evidence in the committee papers and listened to you this morning, I am still not sure exactly what that co-operation would look like. Patrick Harvie’s questions and your answers have been very instructive, but I am not entirely sure what it would look like. I refer to what Professor Basiri said about the role that the UK might play in the US and EU approach. Do you have any insight?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 13 March 2025
Stephen Kerr
Given the nature of the EU, and its insistence that we lock ourselves in to its regulatory approach, it would probably expect us to abide by the European Artificial Intelligence Act 2024, which you referred to. You have not talked about that in the most positive light, in regard to how we can take the most advantage of AI and also protect ourselves from its dangers. You said that we want to be at the cutting edge, as opposed to taking the EU approach, which seems to be having a stifling effect, if I understood correctly.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 13 March 2025
Stephen Kerr
Going back to the geopolitics of the moment, any restriction on American-owned businesses is seen as an affront by certain people who are in power in Washington.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 13 March 2025
Stephen Kerr
Professor Schaffer, you are very strong on the point that this issue is separate from the TCA.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 13 March 2025
Stephen Kerr
If you take your RSE hat off, do you have a different personal view? I would be interested to hear it.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 13 March 2025
Stephen Kerr
It is 500 million.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 13 March 2025
Stephen Kerr
Strange things happen in Paisley.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 13 March 2025
Stephen Kerr
Are you talking about wage rates?