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 2487 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Mairi Gougeon
Absolutely. As I touched on in my initial response, the commission has made really good strides in improving its regulatory performance. I believe that it has already been directing resource specifically to enforcement, but I hope that, with the new funding that has been allocated, it will be fully resourced to deliver on the provisions in the bill, as well as continuing to improve its performance and ensure that it undertakes enforcement.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Mairi Gougeon
Yes.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Mairi Gougeon
The cut that took place in, I think, 2024-25 was significant. We had invested more in woodland creation over the previous year. However, we also recognise that it will take a bit of time to ramp up to the rate of planting that we hope to see and that we have set out in the climate change plan. The budget that we have allocated to woodland creation in this year’s budget will help us to reach the targets that are set out in that plan.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Mairi Gougeon
I have certainly heard from FLS that it is not expecting any additional budget pressure from the measures that are in the bill. I believe that it is quite confident on that.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Mairi Gougeon
I agree, and I remember that we discussed that in previous committee sessions. I have visited the Aberdeen site and have seen it for myself, so I completely understand the concerns that have been raised about it.
Since 2020, around £10 million has been invested in the site, and around £1.2 million has been identified for work to take place during this year and next year. A project board is looking at what needs to be done in the short and medium terms and at what the longer-term aspirations are for the site. I think that the board is working up a strategic outline for that work.
Again, I note that you will not see an allocation for that within the marine directorate budget, because the site is part of the Scottish Government estate, so it would fall to our estates directorate to fund it. That is largely where the funding for the work has come from.
Iain Wallace can explain a bit more about the work that is taking place there.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Mairi Gougeon
We have not opened a new round this year, but I believe that we have allocated funding for some projects. I would have to look at the detail of some of the projects that we have funded in the past. Our shellfish industry is hugely important and it is part of our vision for sustainable aquaculture in Scotland, so we would look to engage with and support that key sector.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Mairi Gougeon
No—we are certainly not intending that to happen. Being able to retain the resource funding has been an important element of that, and a lot of good work has been developed in relation to carbon neutral islands.
We have funded the community development workers who are involved in the project and based on the islands. They have been doing some incredible work, and we want that to continue. Even though there is no specific capital allocation against the project, that should not prevent any such projects coming through the islands programme allocation. I am happy to follow up on the specifics of the programme, what it has delivered and the point that it is currently at. It has a been a really positive programme of work that we want to see continue into the future.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Mairi Gougeon
Again, I would have to look through the detail to double check that, but we recognise how critical it is to have that engagement with operators. I know that my transport colleague and the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity are heavily involved in that work.
We recognise how vital connectivity is, but I can follow up with the exact detail on that. I do not have the plan in front of me, and I would be reluctant to mention a specific objective or framing without being able to look at the specifics of the document.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Mairi Gougeon
I appreciate the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee’s scrutiny of the good food nation plan, and I recognise the importance that has been placed on it. At that time, there was a lot of discussion about the commencement of section 10 of the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022, which brings in the obligations on local authorities and health boards to prepare their own plans.
What I would say is that a lot of the focus in that particular budget line and that funding is about ensuring that we get the Scottish Food Commission up and running and fully established. We now have the commissioners in place, and we recently appointed the chief executive, who is now in post. As I have said, that is where the funding focus has been.
In the light of the concerns that were discussed by the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee during its scrutiny of the plan, we will have further conversations with local authorities on the timing of the commencement of section 10, when those obligations will be brought into force, and the local government elections. Those discussions are on-going. We set out in the financial memorandum to the 2022 act the funding that we expected to make available to local authorities to assist with the development of their plans, because we recognise that that will require some resource. However, as I have said, those discussions are still on-going.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Mairi Gougeon
That is the thing. We would not want to undermine any of the work that has been done or any of the work that is being discussed in the proposed amendments to the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill, which we will discuss in more detail in the coming weeks. There will be more engagement on the issue to hear the concerns or frustrations that have been expressed by various stakeholders. I presume that there will be guidance to clarify what exemptions there might be. There are still more discussions to take place because, ultimately, we all want to take a pragmatic approach to it.
