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 2594 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
John Mason
Yes—that was a very wide discussion; it was about data sharing across the whole of Government.
I turn to a somewhat different subject—types of initial destinations for young people leaving school. As I understand it, those are measured in October each year, roughly three months after young people have left school. Is that right? Should we be concerned about the types of destinations that young people are going to? Certainly, if we use the SIMD figures, we can see that there is quite a range from the bottom 20 per cent to the top 20 per cent. The obvious difference is that more of those from the top 20 per cent are going to university.
I am genuinely open minded about this. Can we be relaxed about that? Last week, we were discussing widening access—some young people go to college first and then to university, so statistics on initial destinations that are captured three months after young people have left school perhaps do not tell us the whole story.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
John Mason
On that point, as I understand it, the value of PEF in real terms has fallen by 16 per cent since 2017. Is that just because money has been tight, generally?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
John Mason
I have to say that I am surprised by some of the lines of questioning so far, given that the committee is very keen that we see a big change and quickly. Presumably, even if the membership of the board is tweaked at stage 2, we would still need a core board and a chair. That will not change; the Educational Institute of Scotland will not take over the whole board like it wants to. Therefore, surely we can move ahead.
I have been trying to think of other examples to show that this process whereby legislation goes through the Parliament and the Government moves ahead in the meantime and appoints people on an interim basis is quite normal. The example that I thought of is the Scottish Fiscal Commission. I was on the Finance Committee when the legislation to establish the commission was going through the Parliament, and I think that people were in post before it passed.
Whatever the committee anticipates for the Education (Scotland) Bill—there might be major amendments and there might not be—we were in the same position when we legislated for the Fiscal Commission. As I said, I am surprised. I do not know whether the cabinet secretary is. It is quite normal for such things to go ahead in parallel.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
John Mason
Do you accept the point that a poorer family in a richer area generally does better than a poorer family in a poor area, and that families in the poor areas therefore need more support?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
John Mason
Is that 50 per cent to 66 per cent just what you would like to happen, or do people think it could happen?
10:15Finance and Public Administration Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
John Mason
In an answer to the convener, you said that people should not be told that they cannot have treatment because of the cost. However, is that not just life? We cannot have more roads because of the cost, we cannot have more houses because of the cost and we have waiting lists in the NHS because of the cost. We are limited, as a nation and as individuals, by how much money we have. Surely there has to come a point at which there is just no money for someone’s hip replacement or whatever else they need.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
John Mason
Well, give me a suggestion for the future. We have wasted money on the ferries and we have wasted money on IT. Where in next year’s budget would we get the money from?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
John Mason
I look forward to that. I would just raise tax and pay for it in that way, but you might not want to do that.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
John Mason
Still on the money and on the comment that £1 that is spent today could save £4 in the future, it has been suggested that that would not be a saving, given how much pressure there is on the justice and health systems. It would just relieve some of the pressure, so there would, in fact, not be any saving.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
John Mason
I do not think that we will see that money coming back, but I take your point that it will relieve the pressure.
Finally, you want the bill to be put into law. It seems to have become a habit of the Government and others to put things into law but then not achieve them. What happens if we put the bill into law and targets are not met? Would a Government minister go to prison?
