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 3509 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Cross-portfolio Session
Meeting date: 17 December 2025
Douglas Ross
I think that people would appreciate that.
I thank you, your ministers and your officials, for your time today. The committee members and I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a good new year when it comes.
Meeting closed at 13:38.Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Cross-portfolio Session
Meeting date: 17 December 2025
Douglas Ross
Do you accept that it could have been introduced before now?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Cross-portfolio Session
Meeting date: 17 December 2025
Douglas Ross
That was on Sunday.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Cross-portfolio Session
Meeting date: 17 December 2025
Douglas Ross
To be clear, are you saying that as recently as Sunday—just three days ago—the Government position, which it was asking ministers to articulate to the media and to the public, was that the clarification was sought of it rather than offered by it?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Professor Alexis Jay and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs
Meeting date: 17 December 2025
Douglas Ross
Mr Adam mentioned the large number of amendments to the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. We are told that child protection relates to the education portfolio—or, rather, that that has always been the case, but that certainly seems to have been clarified more recently.
Given that view, what discussions did you have with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills about Liam Kerr’s amendment, and what discussions took place between officials from the justice and home affairs directorate and those from the education directorate about that amendment?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Douglas Ross
This is a group that is just about gulls. It continues a number of discussions—sometimes passionate and, in my case, animated—that I have had with the minister about the issue of gulls. It is an issue that deserves attention in the Parliament, despite what others say. The bill gives us an opportunity to address concerns that have been raised by my constituents and those of other MSPs. I would particularly like to mention the work that Fergus Ewing has done on the issue, particularly around Inverness and Nairn, and the engagement that he has had with local business improvement districts and others.
In the past, Mr Ruskell has claimed that I want to kill every gull in Scotland, so I want to make it very clear that I do not want to kill them all. Indeed, this suite of amendments would not necessarily result in any gulls being killed. The amendments concern the powers of NatureScot in particular, which I will come on to in a moment, and the information that we have, which I think is lacking.
My amendment 257 gets to the heart of something that I have repeatedly raised with the minister. I respect that he has taken a different view on this, and he might still take a different view, but I would like to get this point on the record. I think that NatureScot has a serious conflict of interest. The organisation is charged by the minister and the Government both to conserve bird numbers and to determine the licences to control bird numbers, and I do not in any way see how those two things are compatible.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Douglas Ross
They would have to consider that. I will come on to the series of amendments, because they offer the minister and the Government a number of options. The licensing functions could be transferred to Government ministers, to local authorities or to any other body that the Scottish Government deemed appropriate.
However, on those considerations, I think that the minister himself accepted in the Parliament that some of NatureScot’s determinations have been, frankly, ridiculous. I believe that that was the wording that he used, and I will repeat the example that I think that he used. We had a case in Nairn in which an application was made to remove a nest, which was very high up, and NatureScot said that a picture had to be taken of the nest with that day’s newspaper. That is ridiculous, and I think that the minister accepted that in the chamber.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Douglas Ross
He says “experimental”; I will say “weird”. They were kept private and out of the public domain, but they deserve to be in the public domain, because those ideas are coming forward from an organisation that I do not deem suitable to determine these licence applications going forward. That is why I seek support for my amendments 257, 258 and 259.
We should also support amendment 260, in my name, in order to find out how much money is being spent by local authorities. Rachael Hamilton said that she does not know about future funding. My understanding is that the £100,000 is a one-off; it is a token fund, and the money will not continue. We need to know how much local authorities are spending.
My final amendment, amendment 261—for which I think there will be some support, if not from members of the Government’s party—simply seeks to work out how many of these birds there are in different parts of the country. As I said in my opening comments in this debate, if the RSPB thinks that we can and should get these bird numbers, why does the SNP Scottish Government not?
I urge members to support the suite of amendments in my name, and amendments 262 and 263, in Rachael Hamilton’s name.
I press amendment 257.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Douglas Ross
The process is happening, but not quickly enough. I refer the minister to written question S6W-42266, on the Inverness gull management plan pilot, lodged by Fergus Ewing, which the minister answered yesterday, I think. The pilot is still being developed by NatureScot. It is several months since the minister held his summit. We are not a million miles away from the next gull breeding season and NatureScot is still sitting on its pilot plan for next year’s nesting season. I accept that the minister believes that he has made progress internally with NatureScot, but it does not look like it is moving quickly enough—certainly not in terms of next year’s breeding season. We will quickly reach the point of the year when the gulls’ behaviour becomes even more aggressive, as they try to protect their eggs and nurture their young. We do not have the plans in place to deal with that.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Douglas Ross
I get the impression that the minister will not go through his reasons for not supporting the amendments. He is wedded to his view of NatureScot, which I fundamentally disagree with; I think that it should be stripped of that licensing function.
However, if the minister is going to stick to his view, I would at least like to understand it. What is wrong with asking for an annual survey of the gull populations in coastal and urban communities? The minister may say that that is in his plan, but, if that was the case, there would be no problem with agreeing to the amendment, to make sure that it happens.
