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.
Criathragan Hide all filters
Displaying 2307 contributions
|
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
Douglas Ross
That is true, as it sometimes is when your party is in opposition in a different Parliament in the United Kingdom. The same charge could be made against it.
To make a serious point, we are talking about a significant figure, but, in the context of a £64 billion budget, I believe that the funding can and should be found for something that most, if not all, of us agree is a national emergency.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
Douglas Ross
The increased costs in the bill will go to the Scottish Government, and the Scottish Government makes the funding decisions. We would not limit it to putting money into ADPs or health boards. The money that the Scottish Government currently provides to ADPs or through ADPs goes through councils, so there are opportunities for councils to spend and receive a greater proportion of funding if the Scottish Government believes that that would be the best way to deliver what would be required by the bill. We have tried to keep that as open as possible so that we do not limit the Scottish Government’s ability to deliver the objectives of the bill.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
Douglas Ross
We feel that it is an accurate assessment of roughly where we could get to. We are not going to get 100 per cent of people who did not complete their treatments, but 50 per cent would be a not insignificant increase; however, getting to two thirds would be a larger proportion of people who do not complete their treatments than was the case in the past. By having that enshrined in law, they could—and should—be able to do so. I hope that they will, through health authorities taking a person-centred approach, be more encouraged to do that and to continue the discussion about their treatment options. The aim was to provide a range of opportunities for people who are currently not completing the treatment that experts have deemed to be appropriate for them.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
Douglas Ross
I disagree, given how serious and crucial the issue is. As I mentioned, the Scottish budget is about £64 billion annually, and I am asking us to spend less than £200 million a year on supporting people who have addiction problems. Given what people with addiction have suffered and continue to suffer—to go back to Ross Greer’s point about stigma and the impact being not just on the person and their family—getting people over their addiction is money well spent. Remember, those people want to get better; they have struggled and suffered for far too long, and they have sought help and support.
I have countless testimonies from people who were told that residential rehab or other forms of treatment were right for them but they could not get that treatment because of either cost or availability. In 2025, here in Scotland, no one should be unable to get the help and support that they need to get off their addiction and turn their lives around. People who have gone through the process successfully and have turned their lives around make an amazing impact on our community and society.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
Douglas Ross
Again, I could go on, as I did in a previous role, about savings that the Government could make in major projects. We could discuss ferries, for example, or we could discuss the money that was wasted on the information technology system for farm payments back in 2016. We could discuss—
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
Douglas Ross
There are two routes that we could go down. We could use the data that is available—which I, as the member in charge, accept is not ideal. That view is shared by many. Alternatively, we could look at that data and then add 10, 20 or 50 per cent; however, I would then be coming before this committee and struggling to defend that in any way.
I have looked at how this committee has scrutinised members’ bills and Government bills, and I think that it is right for it to look for the figures presented to be backed up by data, which is what we have tried to do with this financial memorandum.
I have also heard what the committee has said in the past about providing a range, which is why there is a range, with lower and upper-end expectations. Also, if the bill is passed, by including a proposal for annual reporting to Parliament, there is an opportunity for us to have better data to inform our decisions. Although, ultimately, the bill is designed to save lives and improve opportunities for people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol, there is another benefit, in that we will be able to gather better data across Scotland, which can inform our decisions, including financial ones.
On the impact of the bill that some respondents to your call for evidence cited, there was a lot of discussion about wider issues that affect people with addiction being included in the bill. That was not possible, because the bill is a non-Government one and so has to be quite narrow in scope. We have done as much as we can within that narrowness, but there are undoubtedly areas of spend in public life that are affected and impacted by people being addicted to drugs or alcohol that are not included in the bill. However, the bill will not stop that spend or prevent that issue from being looked at going forward.
We address the issue of capital in the financial memorandum. The Scottish Government has been clear that it wants to get up to 650 residential rehab beds by March of next year, which is in 12 months’ time. The Government believes that it is on course to achieve that, and I hope that it does. Therefore, a large proportion of the funding that is needed for that has already been guaranteed by the Scottish Government, in previous budgets and the current budget. There is £160 million there, which is the baseline that we used for our calculations. A large proportion of that will be spent on increasing the number of residential rehab beds.
It is important that we recognise that in the financial memorandum. Although we do not separate out the capital costs, there is no need to do so, because there is that commitment from the Government, which it has backed up with its funding commitment of £160 million.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Douglas Ross
Professor McKendrick produced 20 recommendations in that report, and the Scottish Government agreed with, or partly agreed with, 19 of them. The one that you disagreed with was about extending his remit into tertiary education. I have heard the reason for that, but do you want to explain the reason for that further and say whether that continues to be the position of the Scottish Government?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Douglas Ross
When did you find out that it would be £15 million? When did you know what your board would have to work with?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Douglas Ross
Was it maybe just at the time of the announcement?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Douglas Ross
Why are we sat here in 2025 still discussing this? The committee’s inquiry is quite short, and every witness so far has spoken about the benefits of a unique identifier. The commissioner for fair access said that progress had been made—he felt that it was one of his recommendations that was really gaining momentum. However, why has it taken until this point? I have not heard anything yet, apart from cost alone, to suggest that a unique identifier could not have been implemented quite some time ago. Are we missing anything?
