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 4236 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Kenneth Gibson
Some of the questions that I was going to ask Professor Heald with regard to his submission were asked of the SFC in the previous session, and so I will not tread on my colleagues’ toes, because they may wish to ask the same or similar questions here.
In the pages of the submission, Professor Heald has, I think, expressed frustration with regard to people’s understanding of the tax system in Scotland relative to the UK. I will quote from it.
In a supporting document to the budget, the Scottish Government states:
“54% of respondents felt they understood the UK tax system and the UK taxes paid. This compares to 41% of respondents who felt they understood tax devolution in Scotland and the devolved taxes they paid. This is broadly in line with the last three years.”
However, your submission states:
“If this were true … why do the UK and Scottish Governments engage in so much subterfuge?”
Are you referring specifically to fiscal drag, or have you concerns about a number of areas in which the Scottish and UK Governments are pulling the wool over people’s eyes?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Kenneth Gibson
Indeed.
What do you think, Professor Spowage?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Kenneth Gibson
There is also the issue of incorporation and people putting money into pensions and all sorts of stuff.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Kenneth Gibson
You have talked about loss aversion at this committee in the past. As we all know, the problem with council tax reform is that the losers will all be less than pleased with the Government—of whatever colour—that introduces it, which is why it has not happened in England, although it has been done modestly in Wales.
I want to switch tack. I want colleagues to come in, but I want to ask a couple more questions. I end up getting sucked into a big discussion and other people cannot come in. In the previous evidence session, we did not speak much about the sustainability of social care. You have touched on that, Professor Bell. What is your concern about that, given the tightness of the local government settlement?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Kenneth Gibson
Let me go back to Professor Spowage. Capital is a real issue. Along with colleagues. I was quite astonished to see that the infrastructure investment pipeline does not seem to include any timelines or any budgets for any of the projects. As we discussed with the previous witnesses, the overall capital budget is set to reduce by 5 per cent in real terms. That is the figure if we use the GDP deflator, which, in my view, is the wrong measure for capital, because, as we all know, construction costs are well ahead of that. The GDP deflator gives an unrealistic picture of what can be delivered, which is less than we would like.
What is your view on where we are going with regard to capital expenditure over the next five years and what can be delivered through it?
12:00
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Kenneth Gibson
We have been calling for that since December 2023.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Kenneth Gibson
We might have one or two questions for the cabinet secretary next week.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Kenneth Gibson
That is only the case if nothing changes in the next five years.
13:00
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Kenneth Gibson
Good morning, and welcome to the third meeting in 2026 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We have one public item on our agenda today, which is evidence from two panels of witnesses on the Scottish budget for 2026-27.
For the first panel, we will hear from the Scottish Fiscal Commission. I welcome to the meeting Professor Graeme Roy, the commission’s chair; Dr Eleanor Ryan and Justine Riccomini, who are commissioners; Claire Murdoch, the head of fiscal sustainability and public funding; and Michael Davidson, the head of social security and devolved taxes.
Having read out that list, I think that our time is just about up.
Before we move on to questions, I invite Professor Roy to make a short opening statement. Good morning, Professor.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Kenneth Gibson
It makes it difficult for people to make comparisons year on year, which is certainly a concern for this committee and for anyone who might want to look at the figures.
One thing that stands out is the difference in the reconciliation, which is a change of more than £0.5 billion. You touched on the reasons for that, but only a few of them. Although they are in your report, could you go through them in a wee bit more depth for the record?
