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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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Transport Policies and Performance
Meeting date: 7 October 2025
Edward Mountain
Monica Lennon has the next question.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Transport Policies and Performance
Meeting date: 7 October 2025
Edward Mountain
A few other people want to question you about buses, cabinet secretary. I will bring in Monica Lennon, to be followed by Bob Doris.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Transport Policies and Performance
Meeting date: 7 October 2025
Edward Mountain
We are definitely not finished yet, cabinet secretary, because we are coming on to a very important subject that is close to my heart, and you will not have to guess that it is ferries.
On 19 September, the committee met Peel Ports to discuss various matters, including the issues at Ardrossan. At that meeting, it was clear to me that what I had been led to believe in the Parliament about Peel Ports frustrating the purchase of Ardrossan was not true. Could you confirm that the Government has delayed the purchase of Ardrossan harbour on two occasions, on the basis that it is still trying to figure out whether Troon or Ardrossan should be the base for the ferry, or was it just on one occasion, but we were told two?
11:30Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Transport Policies and Performance
Meeting date: 7 October 2025
Edward Mountain
So, there was a discussion on whether Troon or Ardrossan—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Transport Policies and Performance
Meeting date: 7 October 2025
Edward Mountain
Finally, you might not recognise the figure of £170 million, but it was quoted some time ago as what Peel Ports thought that it would cost to increase the size of the pier to take a bigger boat than had previously moored there. As part of your costings for buying the port, and as part of the business case, you will have a cost for doing the repairs and regeneration required at Ardrossan. What will it cost the people of Scotland to get the port fit to take a ferry that was ordered over nine years ago?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Transport Policies and Performance
Meeting date: 7 October 2025
Edward Mountain
I just want to push on that slightly, if I may, cabinet secretary. In a commercial deal, part of it will be about recognising the amount that you will have to invest in the asset to make it work. I am not convinced that you have those figures in front of you—or do you have them to hand?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Transport Policies and Performance
Meeting date: 7 October 2025
Edward Mountain
I am looking around to see if there are any other questions.
For the last series of questions, cabinet secretary, I ask you to cast your mind back to June 2023, which is just before you became a cabinet secretary. You were then part of this committee. On 26 June 2023, it produced a report on “A Modern and Sustainable Ferry Service for Scotland”, which I am sure you remember. I draw your attention to paragraph 193, which states:
“There is widespread agreement that the current tripartite arrangement for managing Scottish Government-funded ferries is not working effectively for the Clyde and Hebrides and is not adequately serving ferry-dependent communities. Change is needed.”
Paragraph 198 then states:
“The Committee recommends the Scottish Government should give consideration to a CMAL-Transport Scotland merger, to create a “Ferries Scotland” as an arm of Transport Scotland. This could streamline decision-taking.”
That followed on from a report by the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee in 2020 that said that the tripartite agreement was not working. What are you doing about it, cabinet secretary?
11:45Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Transport Policies and Performance
Meeting date: 7 October 2025
Edward Mountain
We have had more focused ones since then, cabinet secretary. [Laughter.]
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Transport Policies and Performance
Meeting date: 7 October 2025
Edward Mountain
I totally agree. My point is that CMAL is holding pensions that are the responsibility of CalMac, as I understand it, and there is a deficit in the pension fund. I am asking you whether that is going to be resolved in the short term.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 October 2025
Edward Mountain
Our next item of business is consideration of a negative SSI, the Motor Vehicles (Competitions and Trials) (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2025. These SI titles get snappier all the time.
The instrument is laid under the negative procedure, which means that it will come into force unless the Parliament agrees a motion to annul it. No such motion has been lodged, but the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has drawn the instrument to the Parliament’s attention under reporting ground (i)—defective drafting—and also under the general reporting ground in respect of two further points.
The defective drafting relates to how different types of motor vehicle events are regulated. The DPLR Committee noted that races or trials of speed are authorised and regulated under one set of regulations—the Motor Sport on Public Roads (Scotland) Regulations 2019—whereas other types of competitions and trials are regulated under the Motor Vehicles (Competitions and Trials) (Scotland) Regulations 1976. The instrument amends the competitions regulations by designating four rallies as specified events. However, the Government has now acknowledged that it is the motor sport regulations that should have been used, and it has said that it intends to introduce amending regulations urgently.
The DPLR Committee also reported two more drafting issues: first, the first rally is misnamed in the instrument, as the Scottish Government has now acknowledged—it is not the Robert Albert Clark rally but the Roger Albert Clark rally. The Scottish Government has undertaken to correct that by amending the instrument. Secondly, the committee queried the use of the phrase “public way” instead of “public highway”. The Scottish Government says that it considers the drafting to be clear but will reflect further on whether greater consistency would be preferable.
It looks as though no member has any comments on the instrument, so I?invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any further recommendations in relation to it but acknowledges those of the DPLR Committee. Is everyone happy with that?
Members indicated agreement.
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