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 3461 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Jackson Carlaw
PE2041, which was lodged by John Ronald, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to encourage local authorities to exempt staff working at community healthcare facilities who do not have access to free on-site staff parking from on-street parking charges and to allow them to care for vulnerable and sick people in our country without it costing them thousands of pounds per year.
We last considered the petition at our meeting on 9 October 2024, when we agreed to write to NHS regional health boards. We have received responses from 11 boards, and three boards have not responded. As we have learned from the evidence that was received previously, the NHS terms and conditions of service stipulate that parking charges that are incurred as a result of attendance at an employee’s normal place of work will not be reimbursed. Many of the responses that we have received from NHS regional boards have recognised that limitation. However, most board responses highlight that there is already free parking for staff across board premises. In some cases, that extends to patients and visitors. If they are limited, parking spaces are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
Respondents reiterate that, as per the NHS terms and conditions of service, where staff travel as part of their duties and have to pay public parking charges, they can reclaim those costs through expense claim processes, with the caveat that no parking offences have been committed.
That seems to address the issue of the petition directly.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you. Mr Ewing, do you want to come in?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Jackson Carlaw
In closing the petition, therefore, would the committee, in the time that is left to us, like to write to the Scottish Government, illustrating the work that we have undertaken and noting that we have identified inconsistencies? We could note that, although the broad statement that charges can be recovered will indeed allow some people to be recompensed, others are escaping through the net. That is unreasonable, and it would perhaps be useful for the Scottish Government to be aware of that. If possible, if nothing further happens, the petition might resurface in the next parliamentary session, which would present the opportunity to do a bit more work on it at that time.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you, Ms White. You referred to the petitioner as Tracey White; I note that the petition has been lodged by Margaret Tracey White, but I take it that Tracey White is the petitioner’s given name, so I am delighted that Tracey White is with us in the gallery today.
Mr Lumsden, would you like to say a few words?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Jackson Carlaw
It is Tracey Smith; you are correcting my correction. That is rarely necessary, Mr Lumsden, but I am very grateful to you for your support and assistance in my senility. Anyhow, please proceed.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Jackson Carlaw
As there are no further thoughts, are we content to agree with Mr Golden?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Jackson Carlaw
We are, so thank you very much. We will keep the petition open and progress on that basis.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
New Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Jackson Carlaw
That brings us to item 3, which is consideration of new petitions. As always, in advance of this item, because people might be joining us to see how their petitions are being considered, I say that we do two things before we bring a petition to the committee for consideration. One is that we seek information from the Scottish Parliament information centre—SPICe—and the other is that we ask the Scottish Government for an initial view. People ask us why we do those two things and we do them because, when the committee considered a petition in the past, they were the first two things that we decided to do and all that it did was delay our consideration of the petition. What we do now allows us to expedite our process.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
New Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Jackson Carlaw
I agree. Is the committee content to proceed on that basis?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
New Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Jackson Carlaw
The last of the new petitions, PE2149, lodged by Andreas Heinzl, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to legally require speed cameras in front of all schools next to major roads. The SPICe briefing explains that there are a number of key criteria for the installation of a safety camera at a specific site. The Scottish Government’s response to the petition notes that the enforcement of speed limits is an operational matter for Police Scotland. The submission states that the Scottish Government provides grant funding for the Scottish safety camera programme, which supports targeted enforcement. The Scottish Government also highlights the annual site prioritisation process, which determines new safety camera sites across the road network.
The petitioner’s submission expresses concern about speeding in their area. The Scottish Government published “Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2030: Together, making Scotland’s roads safer”. The framework highlights a three-year study by the Department for Transport into the effectiveness of sign-only 20mph limits, which found that lack of enforcement and lack of concern about the consequences of speeding were the primary reasons for non-compliance. Do committee members have any suggestions for action?
