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 1111 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
David Torrance
Indeed.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
David Torrance
As the issue that the petition raises has been addressed, perhaps we could consider closing it under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that parking charges that are incurred by NHS staff in the course of their duties can generally be claimed back from employers, provided that they do not relate to a parking offence.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
David Torrance
What role should considerations of cost to the public purse and to building owners play in a decision about the future of dangerous listed buildings, in particular buildings without an obvious future in commercial use?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
David Torrance
I wonder whether, in light of the cabinet secretary’s response, the committee would consider closing the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that the Scottish Government has committed to commissioning an independent review of the national gender-based violence in school framework; published in 2024 the relationships and behaviour in schools action plan, which covers emerging areas of concern, including gender-based violence; and, in 2023, revised and consulted on statutory teaching guidance, which includes a section on consent and healthy relationships.
In closing the petition, the committee might highlight to the petitioner that a new petition can be lodged in the next parliamentary session if the Scottish Government’s work in this area does not progress as it has said.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
David Torrance
In light of the information that the committee has received, we should consider closing the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that the Scottish Government and the majority of organisations that we surveyed do not support a blanket ban on the use of mobile phones in schools, and that schools and education authorities have the flexibility to restrict mobile phone use, including by imposing a full ban, based on local circumstances.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
New Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
David Torrance
I wonder whether the committee would like to write to the Scottish Government to request the annual grant funding figures for the Scottish safety camera programme since 2021 and to ask for its view on whether the requirement for a minimum number of collisions could be reviewed to consider alternative risk assessments for the siting of safety cameras, such as historical collision data from similar roads. The committee could also ask the Government to clarify what action is being taken to support Police Scotland’s enforcement of 20mph speed limits, given the importance of enforcement as set out in “Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2030”, and to provide an update on the framework’s key performance indicators on enforcement for 2024-25.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
David Torrance
How many specialist conservation engineers are available to undertake short-notice surveys of potentially dangerous buildings in Scotland? Would requiring local authorities to consult such engineers add delay and cost to the dangerous buildings process?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Pandemic Preparedness
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
David Torrance
That is all right.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Pandemic Preparedness
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
David Torrance
Good morning, everyone. My question is about risk assessment and future planning. Further to the findings of the UK Covid inquiry’s module 1 report, what changes, if any, have been made to the risk assessment process in Scotland to take better account of the specific needs of the Scottish population and who might be vulnerable?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Pandemic Preparedness
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
David Torrance
What has been done in pandemic preparedness planning to ensure a greater focus on preventing the spread of a disease rather than on the impact of the disease? A lot of the time we are reactive rather than prepared.
