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 3123 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
Thank you very much for that opening statement, cabinet secretary.
You rightly mentioned Beth Morrison and the work that she has done on behalf of her son Calum, and Kate Sanger and the work that she has done on behalf of her daughter Laura. However, those are not new incidents; they did not happen recently. Why have we reached the stage of having a member’s bill, when parents have been campaigning for years, including through petitions to this Parliament, seeking the Government to do something? Although it is welcome that the Government supports the bill, why has the Government not done more on the issue before now?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
We will get on to that later, because we received an email from the student union last night and significant concerns have been expressed at the university about it.
Is all the work being done internally? Are you using your own internal skills and expertise or are you seeking outside advice?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
Did you not think that that was an option? Why did you not take that option?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
However, do you have that ability given that, by your own admission, the plan that you submitted in August was rejected by the Funding Council? Does that not indicate that you do not have the ability to produce the plans to the level that is required by the Funding Council, the Scottish Government and others?
10:15Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
You spoke about the fears of teachers and local authorities. What about the fears of parents whose child comes home unwilling to speak about what happened at their school, and who cannot get that information? Throughout our evidence sessions, I have given the same example: if one of my boys trips in the playground and grazes their knee, we immediately get a phone call. That is one of the few issues on which Mr Adam and I agree in this committee, because he has similar experiences with his grandchildren. That happens for children in mainstream education, so why does it not happen when some of our most vulnerable children, who cannot express their own opinions in a normal way, are restrained and secluded?
I am sure that it was not deliberate, but when you spoke about fears, it was all about the fears of the teachers and of local authorities. I have real concerns about the fears of parents who do not know what is happening to their children while they are at school, right now, in 2025, here in Scotland.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
Was it not discussed by the Funding Council?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
That was quite an interesting answer.
Going back to a couple of points that were raised in John Mason’s questioning, I note that you said that a permanent chair is required before you advertise for a principal, but then you said that that was good practice. Is it not required?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
I have quite a lot of information on this that I am quite happy to put into the public domain. I cannot imagine that what you say here will compromise anything, and it just looks suspicious if you will not answer. I am not saying that it is suspicious; I am just talking about what it might look like from the outside.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
If it was not a paper, was there due to be a finance update from the interim finance director—as was the normal process for court meetings—which was then removed from the agenda? Did Helen Simpson still insist on giving an update?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
I have a couple of quick questions to try to wrap up some things from the earlier evidence.
Mr Hamill said in response to some of the final questions that the senior team is open to ideas that it has not thought of. Professor Seaton, what is the most radical, thinking-outside-the-box idea that you have come up with to make the necessary savings at Dundee?
