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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 1377 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 17 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
Good morning. We have already touched on the issue of how you plan to influence education reform, what areas are a priority for you and why you want to influence that. If there is anything more that you want to add on education reform, please do. I appreciate you have already touched on that in response to Pam Duncan-Glancy.
I am also interested in any priorities that you might have for post-school education reform, in relation to which we have had the Withers review. I would be grateful to hear your thoughts on those matters.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 17 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
With the commissioner’s permission, I have a question for Nick Hobbs, who engaged with me in relation to my members’ business debate on Scottish football in January. For transparency, I note that he and I had a meeting about the issue during the recess.
Nick, following our meeting in recent weeks and the debate in the chamber, will you update Parliament on your concerns and the commissioner’s office’s concerns about the way in which young people are considered in Scottish football as economic assets?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 17 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
You will be aware that, in my members’ business debate, I proposed that, as well as the round table, it would be in the interests of all who are involved in the concerns and issues around Scottish football for the Government to undertake a formal consultation on the matter before the end of the current session of Parliament. Would the children’s commissioner’s office support that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 16 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
Good morning. It is good to see you again. I am the member of the Scottish Parliament for the Edinburgh Northern and Leith constituency. I am also the deputy convener of the committee.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 16 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
I think that that covers all the communications updates that we had, convener.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 16 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
My question follows on well from what you and the convener have said. You made three recommendations on the theme of communication. Will you tell us a bit more about the evidence that you heard to suggest that the Scottish Government could do more to improve its communication on climate change?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 16 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
Thanks, Louise. I think that Karen Shakespeare wanted to come in.
11:45Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 16 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
I agree.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 16 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
Just as a point of clarity, we will, of course, take all the recommendations and press the Government on them. It is for the Government to make the decisions about funding and policy changes although, obviously, Parliament votes on that. I hear your point about what to press on, and we will definitely consider that and raise it with the Government.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 16 April 2024
Ben Macpherson
Is there a responsibility on the media to amplify some of the good work that is going on? If the Government seeks to raise awareness of it, that is only part of the story. The media has then got to take it forward—to tell that story.