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 1652 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Decision Time
Meeting date: 4 March 2026
Christine Grahame
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My electronic device would not function properly—I will deal with that later. I would have voted yes.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 4 March 2026
Christine Grahame
I do not know whether there will be anything left to answer on this topic. To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports that a large number of applications have been rejected in the future farming investment scheme, what analysis and guidance it has issued explaining the grounds for rejection. (S6O-05586)
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 4 March 2026
Christine Grahame
I am glad that something has been published, because, as the minister knows, more than 5,000 people applied in 2025 but there was a 70 per cent rejection rate. Although this is an excellent scheme, the minister will know that it will, yet again, be oversubscribed. Something must be going wrong. I ask the minister to consider testing out any draft guidance to see whether it does what it says on the tin.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Decision Time
Meeting date: 4 March 2026
Christine Grahame
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My electronic device would not function properly—I will deal with that later. I would have voted yes.
Meeting of the Parliament [Last updated 11:07]
Decision Time
Meeting date: 4 March 2026
Christine Grahame
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My electronic device would not function properly—I will deal with that later. I would have voted yes.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Childcare Support for Parents
Meeting date: 26 February 2026
Christine Grahame
The point that I am making is that three and four-year-olds do not benefit only from free nursery education. There are lots of other supports for children, especially for those of families that face economic pressures. In this short debate, I do not have time to address the practicalities that I have encountered, such as Edinburgh nurseries charging people from Midlothian. The member was quite right to raise that issue, and the First Minister addressed that.
We have other new funding. There is the national breakfast club provision and the expansion of after-school clubs. There is also the best start funding. In the Borders, 6,130 families have received best start grants and food payments. That is worth more than £3.4 million.
I say to Roz McCall that it is right that we assess the benefits of ELC, but it is difficult to disaggregate the benefits of ELC from those of the other support that is available to families. I would like to know how we might do that. There are pressures on how ELC is delivered—that is a separate issue, which relates to competing pressures in councils. It is difficult to disaggregate the wellbeing benefits of ELC from the benefits of other support. In this short debate, I have been able only to take a glance at the issue.
13:07
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Childcare Support for Parents
Meeting date: 26 February 2026
Christine Grahame
I thank Roz McCall for securing this debate. It is important to see how the ELC system is working and how it can be improved.
It is worth remarking in passing that, in Scotland, ELC is free to all parents and carers of three to four-year-olds, whereas in England it is means tested. The basic test is whether parents and carers take up the extra hours of funded ELC—I know that there are some practical difficulties; I do not have time to get into them, but I agree that there are some, across various councils—and what improvement that contributes to the wellbeing and development of the children, to the family and to the economy. The policy also saves parents and carers about £6,000 per child annually.
The 2022 ELC parents survey found that 74 per cent of parents of three to five-year-olds mentioned that it had enabled them to work or look for work, and 71 per cent said that they were able
“to think about what they may do in the future”.
Overall, take-up of funded ELC among three and four-year-olds was 97 per cent in 2023. I understand from the Scottish Parliament information centre that, to date, it is about 100,000 per cent—I do not mean 100,000 per cent; I mean 100 per cent. What was I thinking?
However, in 2025, the estimated uptake for two-year-olds was 55 per cent, which represented a small decrease on previous years. The 2022 ELC parents survey found that two-year-olds were less likely to access the full 1,140 hours than older children. Access for two-year-olds is means tested—parents require to receive certain benefits, such as income support or universal credit. There appears to be an issue with parents’ awareness of the availability of that provision, which I hope that the minister will address when she sums up the debate. Currently, the Scottish Government provides about £1 billion per year in funding for ELC.
The Covid-19 pandemic had a profound impact on the lives of families in Scotland, and there is growing evidence from a range of research studies that suggests—unsurprisingly—that many young children and their families have been negatively affected. The benefits that are provided by ELC are extra; they do not come on their own. We cannot assess the benefits of ELC on their own. There are other interventions, such as the Scottish child payment, which helps low-income families with children under 16. Each child under 16 gets £27.15 per week, which will rise to £28.20 from 1 April. There is no limit on the number of children in a family who can get that payment. The Scottish child payment also helps families and carers. In fact, it supports 5,785 children in the Borders and 6,320 children in Midlothian.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Childcare Support for Parents
Meeting date: 26 February 2026
Christine Grahame
I am trying to be helpful. Does the member think that remote working, which is not available to everybody, has helped to build in some flexibility for parents?
Meeting of the Parliament [Last updated 19:22]
Childcare Support for Parents
Meeting date: 26 February 2026
Christine Grahame
::The point that I am making is that three and four-year-olds do not benefit only from free nursery education. There are lots of other supports for children, especially for those of families that face economic pressures. In this short debate, I do not have time to address the practicalities that I have encountered, such as Edinburgh nurseries charging people from Midlothian. The member was quite right to raise that issue, and the First Minister addressed that.
We have other new funding. There is the national breakfast club provision and the expansion of after-school clubs. There is also the best start funding. In the Borders, 6,130 families have received best start grants and food payments. That is worth more than £3.4 million.
I say to Roz McCall that it is right that we assess the benefits of ELC, but it is difficult to disaggregate the benefits of ELC from those of the other support that is available to families. I would like to know how we might do that. There are pressures on how ELC is delivered—that is a separate issue, which relates to competing pressures in councils. It is difficult to disaggregate the wellbeing benefits of ELC from the benefits of other support. In this short debate, I have been able only to take a glance at the issue.
13:07
Meeting of the Parliament [Last updated 19:22]
Childcare Support for Parents
Meeting date: 26 February 2026
Christine Grahame
::I am trying to be helpful. Does the member think that remote working, which is not available to everybody, has helped to build in some flexibility for parents?
