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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 2298 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Douglas Ross
I will ask again. Has it asked for alternatives?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Douglas Ross
Have the unions suggested nothing at all?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Douglas Ross
Yes—350.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Douglas Ross
I am not saying that it would, but it would be a signal that you are keen to look at every possibility. You have told the committee that you are looking at selling off buildings, so why not the building that you live in rent free?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Douglas Ross
Some are very high—like yours.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Douglas Ross
To save £90 million, roughly how many will have to go?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Douglas Ross
Do you think that the people in that department will be watching this thinking, “Ah, Sir Peter is quite happy for us to consider this,” or, “Sir Peter would be averse to losing his free house”?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Douglas Ross
Well, I am asking you. Would you offer that up? If they were watching just now, would you say, “This is something that you can consider for the better good of this university”?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Douglas Ross
If you are going to save £90 million, when you have gone to the court and you have been scrutinised, even though the court did not change anything, it must have asked you, “How many job losses do you think this will entail?”
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Douglas Ross
Sorry, it did not ask that question?