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 932 contributions
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Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Independent Review of Creative Scotland
Meeting date: 4 December 2025
George Adam
On the point about capital funding, it is not necessarily about creating a big pot. In some other parts of the UK, funding is almost like a loan scheme: you create the fund and, if it is done properly, with these conversations being had, it will be constantly being paid back into by the people you are funding. In some of the cases that I have looked at, capital funding has been more like a loan process. That looks quite interesting at a time when capital spend is difficult to find.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 December 2025
George Adam
Because of a job that I used to do, I am aware of the proactive publication of data, which I always used to encourage. The amendment uses the term “appropriate for disclosure”, which is a bit vague. For someone who is not publishing that information as best practice, that wording might give them an open door not to publish. It might not do what you want it to do.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 December 2025
George Adam
I have a simple question. Does road tax pay for roads? The answer is that it does not. Governments win elections and make their own decisions. That is the point that John Mason is making.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 December 2025
George Adam
Again, from past experience, when we encourage proactive publication, we sometimes get accused of the opposite—that we are data dumping and making it more difficult for people to find information. How do get that balance?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 December 2025
George Adam
I will just speak to my own amendment, because, basically, we all know that it is all about me. That is a joke—I do not take myself that seriously.
Amendment 16 is straightforward. It would amend section 22 of the 2005 act to require the SFC to consult and collaborate with employers of Scottish apprentices or their representatives, and training providers or their representatives.
The amendment would also give ministers the flexibility to update the list through subordinate legislation, as is the case with existing consultation lists. That would give us the opportunity for future proofing and would provide the flexibility that is needed, as it would mean that we could add key delivery partners now and more in the future, if needed.
We all agree that employers and delivery partners must be at the heart of the apprenticeship scheme, and that is what the amendment seeks to do. It is practical and necessary, and it delivers—much like me. Therefore, I ask members to support amendment 16.
12:15Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Legal Mechanism for any Independence Referendum
Meeting date: 27 November 2025
George Adam
No, I have hundreds of questions.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Legal Mechanism for any Independence Referendum
Meeting date: 27 November 2025
George Adam
The plan is that you all know about the secret plan.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
George Adam
When we took evidence from the Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers Federation, I thought that I might have to pry to get the figure, so I was shocked when the representative openly said that 40 per cent of the money from Skills Development Scotland goes to back-of-house stuff and 60 per cent goes to training. As you know, for colleges, it is 90:10—10 per cent goes to the back-of-house work. My concern, which I think is a concern of the committee, is that, although that figure of 10 per cent is arbitrary—I have concerns about that, too—there is an argument here. I know that you have an amendment on the issue in a later group, but could we look at it more, because there was a lot of concern with regard to the issue?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Transparency of Intergovernmental Activity
Meeting date: 20 November 2025
George Adam
I am interested in the LCM question because, for my sins, I used to be Minister for Parliamentary Business, and I am aware of the issue. It also links to the relationship building, as my Welsh colleague and I used to almost tag-team in various intergovernmental meetings. Those relationships are important, and they are important from a parliamentary point of view as well.
With LCMs in particular, there is always the impression that everything is sent through at the last minute to the devolved Administrations. If there was a process, as you suggested, that gave Parliament the opportunity to get involved, that could make a big difference in the transparency of the whole scenario.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Transparency of Intergovernmental Activity
Meeting date: 20 November 2025
George Adam
Finally, when we were down in London, we were given international examples of where interparliamentary relations work better. Keith Brown has mentioned Canada, which has interprovincial legislative co-operation, and Germany, Australia and Belgium have interparliamentary co-operation between the federal and regional governments. However, those are all federal states. Our key problem is the fact that, although our ad hoc unwritten constitution is flexible and may be helpful, it is at the same time holding us back.
