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 4270 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Energy
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Jackson Carlaw
I will return to you, Mr Ewing, but I know that Davy Russell is keen to come in. David Torrance is going to cover another area, and I also want to bring in our guest member—I have always encouraged our colleagues across the Parliament to join us to discuss petitions in which they are interested, and Oliver Mundell is with us today.
I will bring in Davy Russell first.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Energy
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Jackson Carlaw
David Torrance will come back in on the point about hydrogen. However, Mr Mundell, do you want first to come in on the areas that we are currently discussing?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Energy
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Jackson Carlaw
We would be very grateful if you would.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Energy
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Jackson Carlaw
Do you think that it might be published before the autumn of 2027?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Jackson Carlaw
We discussed the evidence after the previous meeting, and we identified a number of areas of concern. I think that it is fair to the minister to say that she engaged directly with us on the issue, and she and some of the clinicians made a powerful case in some respects. However, areas of concern still remain for the committee. I think that those need and deserve to be pursued, so I am minded that the petition requires to stay open at present.
We have a little time in hand, and I see that Meghan Gallacher is with us this morning. Even though I have said that it might be less likely that other members are going to be called, is there anything that you would like to say, Meghan?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Jackson Carlaw
I believe that the petitioner is with us in the public gallery today. The issues continue to be important, but, given the cabinet secretary’s response, I suspect that we can do nothing further in the time that is available to us. Do colleagues agree with the suggestion that the petition be resubmitted in the new parliamentary session but that we reluctantly close it at this point?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Jackson Carlaw
Okay. We raised the matters with the minister, who supports some of the petition’s aims, so it is a case of demonstrating progress.
Do colleagues support the recommendation?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Jackson Carlaw
This is another painful petition that we have wrestled with over the lifetime of the Parliament, but, given the situation that we are in, do colleagues support the proposal?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Jackson Carlaw
PE2101, on providing defibrillators for all primary and secondary schools in Scotland, was lodged by Peter Earl on behalf of Troqueer primary school.
We last considered the petition on 7 May 2025, when we agreed to invite the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health to give evidence.
During the oral evidence, the minister highlighted the importance of, as I said a short time ago, optimal defibrillator placement and pointed to the new PADmap tool, which shows the location of public access and identifies the areas where defibrillators are most needed.
The minister stated that, during a meeting with the First Minister and Rodger and Lesley Hill, the proposal in the petition was discussed. The DH9 Foundation, which is funded by Rodger and Lesley Hill, and the Save a Life for Scotland partnership subsequently recommended taking a data-driven and localised approach to increased defibrillator access.
The committee asked whether all children could be taught cardiopulmonary resuscitation in schools. The minister committed to discussing that with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills.
Are there any suggestions as to how we might proceed?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Jackson Carlaw
Our next petition is PE1900, which was lodged by Kevin John Lawson. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure that all detainees in police custody can access their prescribed medication, including methadone, in line with existing relevant operational procedures and guidance.
We last considered the petition on 18 June 2025, when we agreed to write to the Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy and Sport. In her response, the minister indicates that the Government intends to commission another survey, similar to the rapid review that was conducted previously. That was scheduled to commence in late 2025. The minister added that NHS Grampian had confirmed that opioid replacement therapy was available at the Kittybrewster custody suite, with some logistical challenges being addressed to extend the service to the two remaining custody suites.
In his most recent submission, the petitioner, too, refers to logistical challenges, informing us that NHS Grampian is still not providing methadone to detainees who are in custody at Elgin and Fraserburgh. He also suggests that, at Kittybrewster, detainees do not receive methadone for the first 48 hours so those with a methadone prescription are instead given dihydrocodeine in the first 48 hours.
Do members have any comments or suggestions for action? There might still be time to do a little bit more with this petition. I suggest that we write to the Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy and Sport to highlight the petitioner’s on-going concerns about the issues in NHS Grampian and to request an update before the end of this parliamentary session on the findings of the most recent review, which was to be conducted towards the end of 2025. It seems that people are still having to wait for access to their prescribed medication. That is not what we understand is supposed to be happening, so we could challenge the Government on that in the time that is available to us.
Are our colleagues content to proceed on that basis?
