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 1542 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
Miles Briggs
Dundee university has, quite rightly, received a lot of attention from this committee, from the Scottish Funding Council and from ministers, but every institution with which I have met is reporting its financial vulnerability. How many of our institutions—both universities and colleges—have outlined, in the run-up to the budget discussions, that they are in a similar situation of financial vulnerability?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Miles Briggs
Do you have confidence that the Scottish Funding Council is looking at each institution’s situation and then bringing to you—
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Miles Briggs
Do you think that that level is realistic? Over the past 10 years, the university has used a level of between 3 per cent and 4 per cent, and the University of Edinburgh has set a level of 7 per cent to 9 per cent, with its accounts for 2023-24 suggesting that the level was 5.8 per cent. I am worried that setting it at 10 per cent will again set up the university so that it does not look like an attractive option to commercial lenders. I know that UCU suggested 4 per cent in some of its conversations. That 10 per cent seems high and unrealistic if we are talking about an average of 3 per cent to 4 per cent in the past decade.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Miles Briggs
I will go back a step to look at the non-statutory guidance that you mentioned in your opening statement. I take on board that you said that the review of the guidance was due to start shortly. However, the NASUWT expressed clear concerns about the guidance when it was published. What learning has the Government taken from those concerns to ensure that such issues do not arise in relation to the bill, especially regarding what the NASUWT said about there being insufficient clarity? It said that the guidance
“will leave children and staff in school at risk”.
The Government has a responsibility to consider how to clarify the guidance, which is a point that I will come on to. I know that the Government has not reviewed the guidance, but what lessons have you already learned from the concerns that were expressed about it?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Miles Briggs
One of the key aspects of that concern has been about definitions—those that are in the member’s bill and those that the Government uses are different. How will the Government amend the bill’s definitions of restraint and seclusion, and how will that encompass practices that are not of obvious concern?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Miles Briggs
Mr Hamill, on the basis of your experience since you have come into post and your experience at the University of Edinburgh, do you think that there is an alternative to the model that has been put forward? The briefing that the committee has had from UCU is interesting in what it says about that, and you have outlined that, on paper, the debt levels of Dundee university are relatively low. Is there an alternative plan that you could talk to the Government about, which might, for example, involve it being the primary lender? The Scottish Funding Council is offering you information about the money that the Government has managed to secure, but would you, as someone who has come in at this point, do something different from what is now proposed?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Miles Briggs
What changes do you think could be brought forward in order to make that information more publicly available, and available to this committee? One of my biggest concerns is that there was not an earlier opportunity for oversight at Dundee university, and—arguably—all other institutions have not moved forward in respect of the transparency and availability of accounts.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Miles Briggs
Mr Hamill, I want to go back to what you were saying earlier about EBITDA. You mentioned a conversation around it being set at 10 per cent. Will you explain the rationale for that decision?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Miles Briggs
I read some really good news about the life sciences innovation hub in The Courier the other day. I hope that that represents a good opportunity for the university and for a thriving life sciences sector.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Miles Briggs
You said that you are relying quite heavily on the SFC and Scottish ministers. Have they had any input? The UCU suggested that a 4 per cent target would remove an additional £18 million through staff cuts, which is the equivalent of 300 jobs.
