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 532 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Crofting and Scottish Land Court Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 October 2025
Tim Eagle
Yes—I get that. I was not clear on that, but I am clearer now as to what you are trying to get at.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 1 October 2025
Tim Eagle
Thank you, convener, and hello, everybody. I am sorry that I cannot be there in person today. It is a fascinating discussion. David Anderson has just touched on exactly the issue that I was going to raise; I asked this question in the earlier session. When I was out over the summer, trust came up a lot. Disagree with me on that if you think I am wrong, but, when I am at the harbours—obviously, I am in the north-east, and I connect with what people are saying, which is that this is about more than fishing; this industry is the cultural lifeblood of the people of Scotland—trust in science comes up a lot.
The practical part of me says that, if we do this, and there seems to be broad support around it, how do we take the data that we have—one of the earlier witnesses said that we have loads of data because we have been doing this for years—and make that as open and easy to understand as possible, as a baseline? How do we then monitor effectively, both with scientists and with your members, and how do we disseminate that information? Any further thoughts that you have on that would be gratefully received so that, if this happens, we can show what the future will look like, whether things are getting better and so on.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 1 October 2025
Tim Eagle
Can I quickly jump in?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 1 October 2025
Tim Eagle
I hope that you can hear me all right. I am sorry that I cannot be with you in person this morning. I had better be quick, because of the convener’s time limits.
I want to touch on data and monitoring. When I am out and about in some of these coastal communities, I get the feeling that they cannot trust what people say in terms of the data, monitoring and so on. Can you run me through a wee bit more about where we are in terms of baselining before we go into this? What do we then need to improve, or what do we need to carry on doing, to monitor effectively and ensure that the data is open so that everyone can see it and have trust in it moving forward, so that we know where we need to get to or where we will go to meet those conservation objectives?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 1 October 2025
Tim Eagle
Sorry, convener—you are right that time is precious.
There are two sides to this, are there not? One side is about what we are looking for in terms of the areas that we are protecting, while the other side is about what the consequences are from the displacement of fishing, so it is about how we monitor those two sides. When you talk about science, Elspeth, I presume that that means data from both sides, so that we know the full picture.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Tim Eagle
I hope that you can hear me. Apologies that I cannot be there this morning quite yet.
Minister, I welcome this; it is brilliant. I take your point that it is not a massive issue in Scotland at the moment, but, back in November 2024, I think it was, we introduced the same approach for free-range egg marketing, which was completely practical and absolutely made sense for the industry. Therefore, I think that people will welcome this.
The two points that I pulled out from some of the consultation responses are about consumer confidence around the free-range label and having prompt outdoor access in the event of the lifting of any restrictions around avian influenza. How have you taken those points into consideration? I do not think that consumers have anything to worry about with this measure—it is a practical step—but I would be interested in your thoughts.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Tim Eagle
That is fine, minister.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Tim Eagle
I have nothing further to add. I seek agreement to withdraw amendment 290.
Amendment 290, by agreement, withdrawn.
Amendments 524, 291 to 295, 518, 519 and 296 not moved.
Sections 20 to 22 agreed to.
Section 23—Rent review: 1991 Act tenancies
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Tim Eagle
I have nothing further to add. I seek agreement to withdraw amendment 289.
Amendment 289, by agreement, withdrawn.
Section 15 agreed to.
Sections 16 to 19 agreed to.
Section 20—Compensation for damage by game etc
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Tim Eagle
Section 14 of the bill applies to compensation for improvements under the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1991. The bill requires a tenant to give notice to a landlord requesting consent for proposed improvements. If the landlord has not responded to a notice requesting consent, the bill allows for a period of 70 days, after which they will be deemed to have consented.
My amendment 544 would provide balance in the process for the tenant. It says that,
“Where notice is given”
by the tenant about improvements,
“the landlord may request further information from the tenant about the improvement.”
It would require the tenant, within 14 days of being asked for more information, to provide it to the landlord. If the tenant fails to provide that information,
“the tenant is deemed to have withdrawn the notice”
that they have given for improvements.
The purpose of amendment 544 is to provide a balanced process. As the bill stands, the landlord will not be able to make fully informed decisions if the tenant is unwilling to provide information or if they delay in doing so. The bill could put the landlord in the very difficult situation of having their silence interpreted as unconditional consent.
Under the bill, the Scottish Land Court is given the ability to overrule the landlord’s refusal of consent. Therefore, it is only reasonable that the landlord should be able to ask for full details of the proposal in order to make a decision. Amendment 544 would not delay the process for more than 14 days, but it would allow the landlord to take crucial steps to ensure that they were making a fully informed decision. By providing for the provision of more clear information, the amendment is also intended to avoid the need to take proposals to the Land Court and the expense of doing so.
My amendment 535 seeks to alter section 38 of the 1991 act, which considers that compensation is not payable for certain improvements to the land
“unless the tenant gave notice to the landlord”
of their intention to carry out those improvements and of the manner in which they proposed to do so.
Section 38(1)(c) of the 1991 act brought in a new list of improvements in relation to which compensation would not be payable unless the tenant gave notice to the landlord of their intention to carry out said improvements.
Section 38(3) of the 1991 act sets out the requirements for such notice. As well as having to be given “in writing”, it must fulfil a shortlist of criteria, one of which is contained in section 38(3)(c), which requires that, for the new improvements that are listed in the 1991 act, notice had to have been provided
“not less than 3 months, before the tenant began to carry out the improvement.”
Amendment 535 seeks to ensure that, if the tenant is the relevant person to whom the duty applies, the requirement for notice of not less than three months to be provided would not apply if it would place the tenant in breach of their duty. Instead, it would mean that notice would have to be provided only
“as soon as reasonably practicable.”
Amendment 535 would also mean that, if those circumstances applied, the landlord could notify the tenant that they would carry out the improvements on behalf of the tenant.
My amendment 276A relates to section 39 of the 1991 act, which deals with compensation for certain improvements. The bill notes what the Land Court is to consider when determining whether to give permission to the tenant to carry out an improvement. Amendment 276A relates to proposed new subsection (1BA), which my amendment 544 would insert in the bill. Amendment 276A would mean that the Land Court would need to give consideration to
“whether sufficient information has been provided to the landlord”
following the tenant giving notice that they intended to carry out an improvement and the landlord asking for more information.
My amendment 540 seeks to add a new section following section 14 of the bill, which deals with compensation for improvements. Amendment 540 would modify section 14B of the 1991 act, which deals with objections by the tenant to improvement notices given by the landlord. In that section, the tenant is able to object to an improvement notice
“before the end of the period of 2 months beginning with the day on which the tenant received the landlord improvement notice.”
That notice
“must be dated and must state the tenant’s reasons as to why the improvement is not necessary to enable the tenant to fulfil the tenant’s responsibilities to farm the holding in accordance with the rules of good husbandry.”
Amendment 540 seeks to add to that provision by setting out circumstances in which the tenant could not object to an improvement notice. They could not do so when
“an item of fixed equipment subject to an improvement notice is considered by the landlord to be an economic requirement for the purposes for which the farm is let,”
or when the tenant
“is given an opportunity to relinquish the item of fixed equipment.”
