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 3584 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
Meeting date: 9 December 2025
Gillian Martin
I understand that, convener. You say that it is difficult for you to do your job, but I would not be doing my job if I did not ensure that we protect devolution in absolutely everything that comes across my desk from the UK Government.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
Meeting date: 9 December 2025
Gillian Martin
You are creating potential scenarios in which the UK Government acts in an area of devolved competence and you are asking how we would interact with that. That is why it is important that we have the consent mechanism. I cannot possibly answer that question at the moment, but Joanna Dingwall might be able to help. Maybe I do not understand your question.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
Meeting date: 9 December 2025
Gillian Martin
Clauses 2 to 10 are the ones with which we have issues.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
Meeting date: 9 December 2025
Gillian Martin
I am just double checking that I have got that right. It is part 2, clauses 2 to 10.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
Meeting date: 9 December 2025
Gillian Martin
A general point is that, because we cannot foresee what might happen if we did not have consent, or if we were not even merely consulted—again, I think that “consult” is a very woolly term, and we not should sign up to being consulted; we should have consent—we could not, case by case, figure out the consequences that might arise in whatever scenario there was. Without having consent, Parliament would not have the ability to scrutinise the consequences of a decision that was being made in which we were not included.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
Meeting date: 9 December 2025
Gillian Martin
At present, clause 9 provides the power for the secretary of state to make regulations in relation to genetic resources, including benefit sharing, enforcement and conflict avoidance. That may apply to devolved matters, and there is currently no requirement in the bill to secure the consent of Scottish ministers for the secretary of state to act in those areas that are within devolved competence.
The fix would be to put in the bill a provision that the secretary of state would seek the consent of the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. I have had a meeting with the UK minister to outline why that is so important.
Will that impact on a lot of our activities? No, but the fundamental bedrock is to ensure that the UK Government does not act in a way that overrides devolved competence, so that is what we are seeking.
My Scottish Government legal colleague has asked to come in.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
Meeting date: 9 December 2025
Gillian Martin
That is true. We are not a signatory because we are not a nation state. We support the aims of the BBNJ agreement and are working hard with the UK Government to support ratification, but your fundamental point is absolutely correct. I was not at the negotiations on the BBNJ. We do not have a seat at the table of the conference of the parties. We rely on the UK Government to give us information about how it is negotiating and what is it is negotiating about.
We have no issues with the BBNJ agreement, but we have to make sure that, when it is enacted by the UK Government, we have consent in relation to the devolved areas in which we have an interest. That is the least that we should expect.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
Meeting date: 9 December 2025
Gillian Martin
That is why it is important that the Scottish Government has a presence at any conference of the parties, wherever that might be. Before the UK Government goes to negotiate at a COP—at COP30 last month, for example—it will give us an indication of how it is negotiating. When you are at COP, the hope is that you are at least able to find out from officials on the UK ministerial team how the negotiations are going.
It is not very official and not very concrete, unfortunately. We do not have a particular constitutional role in the UK negotiations. However, the Northern Ireland Executive and the Welsh and Scottish Governments usually attend the conference of the parties, and we all have meetings with the UK Government ahead of attendance. I would prefer it if those discussions with the UK Government were formalised.
As it stands, the UK Government makes decisions as to what it can sign up to on behalf of the whole UK. I would like the Welsh and Scottish Governments and the Northern Ireland Executive to be more involved in those agreements but, as it stands, they are not. How much the devolved nations are included also depends on the flavour of the UK Government. Ahead of COP30 in Brazil, we had a certain amount of sight on the UK’s negotiations, and we expect that respect between the devolved Governments and the UK Government to continue.
The fundamental problem with the BBNJ bill is that, when it was put together, there was a complicated mix. We heard about rocket launches, carbon capture and storage and all sorts of things that may or may not happen in those areas beyond jurisdiction. It is a complicated mix of devolved and reserved impacts. That is why it is important that, as we agree to the BBNJ bill and there is legislative consent, we are absolutely satisfied as a Parliament and as a Government that we will not have situations in which future secretaries of state could make decisions on what happens in the areas that affect devolved competence.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
Meeting date: 9 December 2025
Gillian Martin
I suppose that the provision of area-based management tools, such as MPAs, would be a component of that. That is why it is so important that we have consent.
I do not know whether I can answer the question about HPMAs, but, as Douglas Lumsden has pointed out, fisheries management tools are the domain of the Scottish Government and it is for the Scottish Parliament to scrutinise what is happening in that area. I do not think that that potential scenario is likely to happen.
In effect, marine protection is a power that sits with the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government, so we would not want to see a UK Government minister having powers over marine protection.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
Meeting date: 9 December 2025
Gillian Martin
That is why it is important that the Scottish Government has a presence at any conference of the parties, wherever that might be. Before the UK Government goes to negotiate at a COP—at COP30 last month, for example—it will give us an indication of how it is negotiating. When you are at COP, the hope is that you are at least able to find out from officials on the UK ministerial team how the negotiations are going.
It is not very official and not very concrete, unfortunately. We do not have a particular constitutional role in the UK negotiations. However, the Northern Ireland Executive and the Welsh and Scottish Governments usually attend the conference of the parties, and we all have meetings with the UK Government ahead of attendance. I would prefer it if those discussions with the UK Government were formalised.
As it stands, the UK Government makes decisions as to what it can sign up to on behalf of the whole UK. I would like the Welsh and Scottish Governments and the Northern Ireland Executive to be more involved in those agreements but, as it stands, they are not. How much the devolved nations are included also depends on the flavour of the UK Government. Ahead of COP30 in Brazil, we had a certain amount of sight on the UK’s negotiations, and we expect that respect between the devolved Governments and the UK Government to continue.
The fundamental problem with the BBNJ bill is that, when it was put together, there was a complicated mix. We heard about rocket launches, carbon capture and storage and all sorts of things that may or may not happen in those areas beyond jurisdiction. It is a complicated mix of devolved and reserved impacts. That is why it is important that, as we agree to the BBNJ bill and there is legislative consent, we are absolutely satisfied as a Parliament and as a Government that we will not have situations in which future secretaries of state could make decisions on what happens in the areas that affect devolved competence.
