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 1653 contributions
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Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Martin Whitfield
In essence, your committee’s value is in the fact that what comes before it covers a whole load of priorities, including subjects that other committees deal with. The overarching part gives it its importance.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Martin Whitfield
We come to my last question—I thank you for your time and, indeed, your patience this morning, minister.
Looking at the gender-sensitive audit, there is—rightly—great pressure for balance even just on a gender basis. One of the challenges on which we have heard a substantial amount of evidence—you have hinted at it, too—is that the size of a Government dictates the availability of its back-bench members to facilitate all the other parliamentary roles. The current Government—rightly, and as Scotland would expect—operates a gender-balanced Cabinet across the ministerial portfolios. How do we square that with the challenge of achieving the same in the Parliament? That becomes incredibly difficult, even in the sense of setting a threshold of 40 per cent, when the number of people of the correct gender are simply not there.
The challenge is first occasioned by the make-up of those who are returned to this place. We had an interesting discussion with the parties about their responsibility in that regard. However, once members are in this place and the pool is fixed, the gender balance of the Scottish Government makes it very much harder to achieve the same in Parliament. Which should take priority? What is your view on that conundrum?
11:30Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Martin Whitfield
Absolutely, yes.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Martin Whitfield
If I absolutely accept your answer to that, minister, do you see the role of an elected convener—a parliamentarian—as being a different pathway for someone who comes to this place?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Martin Whitfield
Yes, absolutely.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Martin Whitfield
You have been very open about this, minister, but it is right and very fair to note that a lot of the committee’s work, such as this inquiry, is done on the Parliament’s behalf, and I welcome the fact that you have said that you would support whatever decision the Parliament reaches.
One interesting aspect of this committee inquiry is the fascinating interaction between the Government and committees. We managed to get the parties to lift the lid on certain dark secrets about what happens under the surface—they might regret that when they look back on their evidence, but we will see; I am also placing an advert for people to look at that evidence.
One thing that I want to concentrate on is the value of having an elected convener. Unless I have misunderstood this, the Scottish Government, in essence, does not have a view on that, because it will address what the chamber says. However, from the Scottish Government’s point of view, would having someone who is very openly identified as representing a committee aid any of the aspects of discussions that happen, behind the scenes and at an official level, to steer things one way or the other? Would having someone who has the chamber’s authority to be a committee convener aid the interaction between the Scottish Government and that committee?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Martin Whitfield
As always, there is an opportunity outside the formal inquiry to send us information. I will gently drag us back to the world of party politics. Sorry, Emma.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Martin Whitfield
Willie, you have three seconds. [Laughter.]
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Martin Whitfield
Would you go as far as to say that it would add not just strength but legitimacy?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Martin Whitfield
In a sense, proportionality has been reached in your committee in that all but one of the parties’ voices are around the table, but the proportionality that you need for the voting balance is not a problem for your committee. I am not inquiring as to your committee’s internal workings, but has the fact that the issues will not come down to a vote assisted in the environment that the committee is working in?
10:30