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 1454 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 27 January 2026
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Just to roll that into my next question, the Scottish Conservatives received a freedom of information response that shows that NHS Ayrshire and Arran wants to sell Carrick Glen hospital. What does that mean for national treatment centres, and will you allow NHS Ayrshire and Arran to sell Carrick Glen?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 27 January 2026
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I make a declaration of interests as a practising NHS GP.
Good morning. Given that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is getting a 7.7 per cent increase in its budget and given the hideous nature of cover-up and scandal that we are seeing at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, is it fair to say that the increase needs to come along with far greater scrutiny of the board? Will you be putting the board into special measures?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 27 January 2026
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
So, is it fair to say that, for now, you are abandoning your flagship policy of national treatment centres?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Given that the theme that we are on is all about NHS emissions and given the answers that we have received, I think that it is worth moving on.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Has the UK Government indicated that it will do that if we pass the bill?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
My final question is about unintended consequences. Medications and devices will change with time as medical expertise improves. Do such orders give us the flexibility to change medications and devices as required? Are we also content that the orders will apply only to medication and devices in connection with assisted dying and nothing else?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Many of our hospitals and NHS buildings are crumbling. We have a £1.5 billion maintenance backlog, and that is not an abstract concept—it means unsafe hospital buildings with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete or water ingress, an ageing electrical supply that might not meet modern electrical standards and standards of equipment, failing heating systems and outdated mental health facilities. As we have seen at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, contaminated water costs lives. We are talking about the basic needs of patients, so, surely, we need to fix the basics before spending a lot of money on the decarbonisation of the infrastructure.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Yesterday, along with First Bus, I launched Glasgow’s first 24-hour bus route, the 77 from the Queen Elizabeth university hospital down into Glasgow city centre, through the west end and out to the airport. That means that any staff who live along that extensive bus route and are working late can use public transport. It also means that patients, who do not always get sick between 9 and 5, can come into hospital on the bus.
Do we need to realign our work timetables, especially late at night, to fit public transport routes? Given that public transport is so important to decarbonisation, do we need more focus on getting routes to major sites, such as the Queen Elizabeth hospital and the royal infirmaries in Edinburgh and Aberdeen? Major carbon dioxide use also occurs up there. Would that make a huge difference?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Thank you.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Given the position that we are in currently with the section 30 order and potential section 104 orders, are you and your officials content that the process will provide everything that we need, should the bill pass at stage 3 and become law?
