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 1281 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
David Torrance
In the light of the direction that we have been given by SPICe and the Scottish Government, I ask the committee to consider closing the petition under rule 15.7 of standard orders, on the basis that the Scottish Government is committed to a new human rights bill that will incorporate further international human rights standards into Scots law; the national task force on human rights leadership did not recommend incorporation of the ICCPR into the new human rights bill; and, although the observation and implementation of international obligations are not specifically reserved under the Scotland Act 1998, provision in that respect applies only to devolved matters that are within the competence of the Scottish Parliament. This route cannot be used to, in effect, extend the Parliament’s powers by claiming that the incorporated international treaty provisions now allow the Parliament or the Scottish Government to do anything that would previously have been beyond devolved competence.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
David Torrance
I think that it was because the convener jumped a petition there—that threw me out.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
New Petitions
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
David Torrance
In the light of the Government’s evidence, I wonder whether the committee would consider closing the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that the Scottish Government’s position is that the extensive clinical examination, which was introduced by the NHS dental payment reform in 2023, is based on the best clinical practice guidelines, and that dentists can use their clinical discretion to see patients more frequently than every 12 months, based on patient risk factors.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
New Petitions
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
David Torrance
No.
Are we content with Mr Ewing’s suggestion as to how we might proceed?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
David Torrance
In the light of the very positive response from the Scottish Government, I wonder whether the committee would consider closing the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that the Scottish Government
“is actively exploring legislative options and intends to bring forward proposals in the coming months”
to address the issue raised in the petition.
11:45Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
New Petitions
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
David Torrance
In light of the evidence that is in front of us, I wonder whether the committee would consider closing the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that there is no mandatory curriculum in Scotland and that the curriculum for excellence is a broad non-statutory national framework, with the content of what is taught being largely a matter for teachers, schools and local authorities. Health and wellbeing is one of the eight curricular areas of the curriculum for excellence and, in addition, is one of the three core areas that are identified as a responsibility for all. The Scottish Government has pointed to resources that are available through Education Scotland to support learning in relation to mental health, self-harm and suicide prevention, and it notes that Education Scotland is currently leading on the development and delivery of the curriculum improvement cycle.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
David Torrance
Good morning, Dr Wardle. Does the proposed location of Scottish units raise any concerns about a disproportionate rate of transfers from areas of high deprivation?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
David Torrance
On that point about capacity, the central belt has the greatest population density in Scotland; indeed, the whole area of Lanarkshire and Wishaw has high population density. Would it not make sense to put the units where you have the highest population density, instead of people having to go to Aberdeen, Dundee or such areas?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
David Torrance
In the light of evidence from the Scottish Government, I wonder whether the committee would consider closing the petition under rule 15.7 of standard orders on the basis that the Scottish Government is of the view that there is no requirement to change the existing legislation and that the committee has no time remaining to progress the issues that are raised in the petition. I would add that the petitioners might consider bringing a fresh petition on the issue in the new parliamentary session.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
David Torrance
I thank all the petitioners. The four petitions in front of us have been heard by the cabinet secretary, and some have been more successful than others, but we should consider the time that the committee has available. Will the committee consider closing the petitions under rule 15.7 of standard orders on the basis that the committee has progressed issues raised on individual petitions as far as possible in this parliamentary session and by raising relevant issues as part of a thematic evidence session with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care?
