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.
Criathragan Hide all filters
Displaying 3427 contributions
|
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Shona Robison
The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government (Shona Robison): Pay costs are managed in line with the Scottish Government’s wider financial management approach, which reflects the requirement to balance its budget in-year. That means that spending must not exceed income in any financial year. To manage the impact of additional pay costs, cabinet secretaries are responsible for setting and managing their portfolio budgets in-year, including for pay. We remain focused on delivering fair pay while ensuring that the public pay bill remains fiscally sustainable.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Shona Robison
It is interesting that Alexander Stewart mentions social care. We have supported pay in the social care workforce to ensure that we can recruit into that workforce to look after our growing elderly population and those who need that level of support. That was a very interesting example for Alexander Stewart to use.
We have set out the requirement for multiyear pay deals, which is important, because that allows us to have certainty and to reduce the risk of any industrial action, which brings its own huge costs. Through those multiyear pay deals, we are able to take forward the important reform work that Ivan McKee is leading on through the public service reform strategy.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Shona Robison
I met the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray, on Monday, when I impressed on him the need to prioritise investment in public services, infrastructure and support for the most vulnerable in society in the UK autumn budget. I will have further conversations with him next month. It is vital that the UK budget delivers the funding that Scotland needs.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Shona Robison
The UK spending review means that Scotland’s capital block grant will reduce by 1.1 per cent in real terms between 2025-26 and 2029-30. That is compounded by the historic real-terms cut to our block grant by the previous UK Government and by sustained high levels of inflation.
Work is under way to develop the next multiyear Scottish spending review and infrastructure pipeline. Difficult decisions will need to be taken to reprioritise our capital programme to ensure that it is deliverable and fiscally sustainable and that it drives progress against our priorities.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Shona Robison
I welcome Alexander Burnett’s acknowledgement in his supplementary question that there was record funding for local government and for Aberdeenshire Council. If memory serves me correctly, the independent Accounts Commission has confirmed that there has been a real-terms increase in funding over the past three years.
It is up to each council to decide which infrastructure priorities to take forward. We help with the capital allocations to local government, which also has the ability to borrow to progress infrastructure investment projects. The funding formula that Alexander Burnett referred to is agreed by the 32 local authorities through the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. It is not for the Scottish ministers to change the funding formula, so I suggest that he takes up that issue with COSLA.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Shona Robison
I reiterate that the Accounts Commission has investigated and has written to every council to highlight its recommendations and the importance of elected members and officers following the Nolan principles of public life. As I said, the new chief executive of Glasgow City Council has rectified the issues, with input from councillors. The council leader, Susan Aitken, has made clear her absolute outrage at what happened in the authority, and an agreement has been reached with Strathclyde Pension Fund for the former chief executive to repay some money to the council.
These are serious issues, but it is important to be clear that there has been no inference that such practice is widespread across our local government structures. The issue was particular to Glasgow City Council, and the Accounts Commission has responded in a very strong manner.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Shona Robison
Evelyn Tweed will appreciate that responsibility for Transport Scotland and its operations is outwith my portfolio, but I will get the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity to write to her with details of how the prioritisation process works. I am sure that the minister will be happy to meet Evelyn Tweed to discuss those matters in more detail.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 23 September 2025
Shona Robison
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My app would not connect. I would have voted no.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 11 September 2025
Shona Robison
Let me put a couple of facts on the record. First, local government funding has increased.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 11 September 2025
Shona Robison
The Accounts Commission has confirmed that, for the past two years, there has been a real-terms increase to local government funding. That is a fact. Moray Council has received an additional 6.6 per cent compared with its funding for 2024-25. I point out to Tim Eagle that the Tories run Moray Council, so perhaps he should have a word with the Conservative leadership of the council.
On ice rinks, I appreciate that the curling community in Elgin in particular will have significant concerns. We are aware of the challenging financial circumstances that face energy-dense sports and leisure facilities. Moray leisure trust has stated that the closure of the Elgin ice rink is a result of increasing energy costs. The United Kingdom Government has the ability to provide appropriate energy bill relief to facilities that require it. We will consider how we can continue to raise such concerns with the UK Government, and sportscotland continues to engage with Moray leisure trust, Scottish Curling and key partners to understand the current situation locally. Those discussions will continue.
