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
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
John Mason
Fair enough.
Let me see if I am understanding this correctly: in a better off area, there might be fewer kids from a deprived background, but the school can focus on them and give them extra support. There are parts of my constituency, though, where everyone in the whole area—or at least part of it—is struggling, which makes things very difficult for the school. Is that a picture that you recognise? It pulls me back to the idea that physical SIMD areas provide a good measure, because that will be reflected in the schools. Am I being unfair?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
John Mason
You said that no institution is immune to the issues. Earlier, we talked about how there is quite a big difference between universities. One of the differences is that the University of Edinburgh has reserves of some £2 billion, and the University of Glasgow has about £1 billion, whereas Glasgow Caledonian University and the University of the West of Scotland have very little in comparison. The University of Edinburgh could run for 15 years with a deficit of £140 million and still be stable, so I struggle to understand why it is making anyone redundant. Obviously, you cannot speak for that university, but is it not the case that we have some very rich universities that do not need support and some poorer universities that need more support?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
John Mason
Ms McPherson spoke about a basket of measures. I have also asked the commissioner this question. Is there a danger that, if the measures become too wide and, in a sense, too individual, it will be very hard to see whether we are making progress because there are so many factors to consider? The SIMD is pretty clear cut. It gives us a clear measure and we know how we are doing.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
John Mason
Would you stick with the SIMD as the galvanising measure? Should it be free school meals or something else?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
John Mason
Ms Rohmer, you talked about rural areas, which are such big areas that there are bits in poverty and bits that are better off. Is it not the case that a poorer family in a better-off area will tend to get more support and care, whereas a family or an individual who lives in an area where everybody is deprived, such as parts of the east end of Glasgow, for example, will find it much more difficult to access care because there is so much need?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
John Mason
Mr Dunphy, we are talking about trying to make the whole system more individualised to target where need is greatest. I made the point to the commissioner that, sometimes, there are two families or households that appear to be in similar financial situations, but in one, there is great cohesion and real commitment to education from the adults, and in the other, there is not. Can we get to a stage where we target the support to the individual or student who needs it?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
John Mason
Thanks very much.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
John Mason
I want to pursue a little further Jackie Dunbar’s point about Scottish index of multiple deprivation areas. I have just been looking at a map of my own constituency in that context. I get the argument that the index is perhaps a bit rough and ready—there might be better-off people in lower deciles and poorer people in other areas—but is it not a good clear-cut measure that people understand? Once we start bringing in this, that or the next thing, does it not all just become vague, so that it is then hard to pin down whether we are making progress?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
John Mason
Will you explain what the identification number is? I am new to this. Is it like a national insurance number?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 26 February 2025
John Mason
Who would have access to that? Does that mean that, if somebody applies to university, the university can find out all about that person’s history?
