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 2295 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Environmental Standards Scotland (Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and Future Priorities)
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Bob Doris
We are not the Finance and Public Administration Committee, but I am minded to note that the cost could be between half a million pounds and £1 million.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Environmental Standards Scotland (Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and Future Priorities)
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Bob Doris
You could be completely right about all of that, Mr Roberts—I am merely questioning the numbers. That is my job here today.
My final question on this issue is this: if we were to approach the £800,000 figure, would it be possible to get in-house expertise so that you did not have to rely on consultants?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Environmental Standards Scotland (Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and Future Priorities)
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Bob Doris
For clarity, are you saying that to get everything that you want to meet these responsibilities in—and I hate to sound glib about it—an all-singing, all-dancing way, the cost would not be £819,000 plus the £100,000 in consultancy fees?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Environmental Standards Scotland (Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and Future Priorities)
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Bob Doris
Would it be reasonable, Mr Roberts, to have a core range of provisions that are costed, with the ability to flex up and get additional expenditure in years 2 or 3, instead of seeking the best part of a million pounds in year 1?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Environmental Standards Scotland (Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and Future Priorities)
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Bob Doris
The note that I have here says that the £819,000 would be for 10 members of in-house staff. They, by definition, would not be consultants.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 20 March 2025
Bob Doris
I am listening with interest to the points that you are making, but I still have in my head what Megan Gallacher and Jeremy Balfour said about your amendments having potential unintended consequences.
That figure of 700 is interesting. It is not one that I had heard before. Do you know if there is any breakdown or analysis of those 700 cases? Before supporting amendment 1052, I would like to understand what those 700 stories look like. Are there themes and trends within that?
What happens if we move away from giving discretion to local authorities? I do not want to get into giving local case studies in my city and constituency, but I have seen good use being made of that discretion—I realise that that might be a controversial thing to say—and I have to wonder about the unintended consequences of taking it away. If we can analyse and understand the circumstances of those 700 cases, it will inform Parliament, either through this process or at a later date, when it comes to enacting the provisions that you are suggesting.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 20 March 2025
Bob Doris
I am listening with interest to the points that you are making, but I still have in my head what Megan Gallacher and Jeremy Balfour said about your amendments having potential unintended consequences.
That figure of 700 is interesting. It is not one that I had heard before. Do you know if there is any breakdown or analysis of those 700 cases? Before supporting amendment 1052, I would like to understand what those 700 stories look like. Are there themes and trends within that?
What happens if we move away from giving discretion to local authorities? I do not want to get into giving local case studies in my city and constituency, but I have seen good use being made of that discretion—I realise that that might be a controversial thing to say—and I have to wonder about the unintended consequences of taking it away. If we can analyse and understand the circumstances of those 700 cases, it will inform Parliament, either through this process or at a later date, when it comes to enacting the provisions that you are suggesting.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 20 March 2025
Bob Doris
I have a few comments about Mr Griffin’s amendment 1072 in relation to the housing first model. I went to Finland with Mr Simpson and other colleagues to look at the housing first model there, and one of my take-home messages was that there is no one housing first model—lots of different models are badged up as housing first—so, if we were to act in the way that Mr Griffin suggested, having a clear definition of housing first would be important. However, the amendment is incredibly well intentioned, and there might be benefits to it.
In relation to giving priority access to welfare services, I think about my constituency case load and the purpose of the bill, which is to prevent homelessness. The housing first model involves, quite rightly, picking up people who have experienced the homelessness system—they might have been rough sleeping—and providing them with wraparound support. In my casework, I deal with people who need intensive support because of significant rent or council tax arrears and who have precarious tenancies, so I hope that the bill is aimed at supporting them. It can be quite difficult to get the attention of local authority welfare services and third sector services so that they can provide those people with that intensive support. However, we have managed that from time to time, and tenancies have been retained and secured.
Mr Griffin’s amendment 1072 would give one group in the homelessness system priority access to services, but that could be at the expense of other groups of people who are threatened with homelessness, which I am sure is not his intention. I am unsure how I feel about his amendment, but I will probably not support it.
Alexander Stewart’s amendment 1014 and Maggie Chapman’s amendment 1070 seek specific homelessness strategies for different groups in society. I am conscious that, although there are protected characteristics, when possible, we want to mainstream our homelessness strategy and be attentive to all of the various groups at the same time. If we prioritise some groups above others, we might lose that mainstreaming approach.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 20 March 2025
Bob Doris
I welcome the fact that you have said that you will seek to withdraw amendment 1077 in order to work further with the Government. I think that one of the reasons that you gave for having the register related to applications being made to two local authorities, which would mean that there could be duplication. Could the double counting of people who are homeless be an issue? Might that issue need to be resolved at a later date?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 20 March 2025
Bob Doris
I am listening with interest to the points that you are making, but I still have in my head what Meghan Gallacher and Jeremy Balfour said about your amendments having potential unintended consequences.
That figure of 700 is interesting. It is not one that I had heard before. Do you know if there is any breakdown or analysis of those 700 cases? Before supporting amendment 1052, I would like to understand what those 700 stories look like. Are there themes and trends within that?
What happens if we move away from giving discretion to local authorities? I do not want to get into giving local case studies in my city and constituency, but I have seen good use being made of that discretion—I realise that that might be a controversial thing to say—and I have to wonder about the unintended consequences of taking it away. If we can analyse and understand the circumstances of those 700 cases, it will inform Parliament, either through this process or at a later date, when it comes to enacting the provisions that you are suggesting.
