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 2221 contributions
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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Stuart McMillan
Earlier, Stacey Dingwall indicated that there are occasions on which small business owners find it difficult to engage with and talk to their landlord. In the context of this part of the bill, would it be problematic if the address were for an agent in contrast to the landlord, or would that not matter?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Stuart McMillan
I will go back to Jeremy Balfour’s first question about landlords’ UK addresses. Does it matter whether the address is for an agent acting on behalf of the landlord? Are you content with that?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instrument subject to Affirmative Procedure
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Stuart McMillan
Under agenda item 2, we are considering one instrument, on which no points have been raised.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instrument subject to Affirmative Procedure
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Stuart McMillan
Is the committee content with the instrument?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instruments not subject to Parliamentary Procedure
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Stuart McMillan
Under agenda item 4, we are considering three instruments, on which no points have been raised.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Instruments not subject to Parliamentary Procedure
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Stuart McMillan
In relation to Scottish statutory instrument 2025/106, does the committee wish to highlight to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee its correspondence with the Scottish Government regarding the policy note?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Document subject to Parliamentary Control
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Stuart McMillan
Under agenda item 5, we are considering one document, on which no points have been raised.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Stuart McMillan
Under item 6, the committee will take further evidence on the Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill. Before we begin taking evidence on the bill, I put on the record that all members of the committee rent office premises in our capacity as members of the Scottish Parliament. Although that does not represent a declarable interest under the bill, we wanted to put it on the record, given that the subject matter of the bill concerns commercial leases.
I welcome Dr Jonathan Brown, who is a lecturer in private law at the University of Strathclyde, and Dr Mitchell Skilling, who is a teaching fellow at the University of Aberdeen. Welcome to you both. Before we start, I remind you not to worry about turning on the microphones, because that will be done for you. If you want to come in on a question, please raise your hand or indicate to the clerks. There is also no need to answer every question if you do not want to deal with something. After the meeting, if there is something that you did not say and you feel that you would like to put it on the record, please feel free to do so in writing.
We will move to questions. Do you think that the law on tacit relocation needs reforming? If so, what are the main problems?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Auditor General for Scotland (Work Programme)
Meeting date: 30 April 2025
Stuart McMillan
Have you looked at any case studies of what has taken place in Inverclyde? Usually, when I come to the committee, I have something to complain about, but I just want to highlight the excellent practice that has taken place in the Scottish Water flood prevention scheme along the A8. Given the amount of joint and partnership working that Scottish Water had to undertake with the local authority, Transport Scotland, Amey and others, that is probably a good model to look at and potentially to replicate across the country.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Auditor General for Scotland (Work Programme)
Meeting date: 30 April 2025
Stuart McMillan
Thank you. That is very helpful. With regard to the finances and the lessons learned, I am not sure whether this work is already due to take place as part of the forensic analysis—I hasten to add that I am not making any accusations; I am just referring to where money has been spent—but it would probably be worth looking at the contracts that were signed with external contractors. Quite a range of external contractors have been involved in the building of the Glen Sannox and the Glen Rosa. Given that the Glen Rosa is still being worked on, whereas the Glen Sannox clearly is not, if you were to look at that aspect with regard to the Glen Sannox in the first instance, that would probably help in relation to the lessons learned if such a piece of work is later undertaken in relation to the Glen Rosa.
