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 1213 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Jenny Gilruth
That creates challenges for us. We think that those things can be resolved, but I am being honest with the committee, and I have set out in correspondence that those are the issues that we need to resolve with Mr Johnson. He has been very open to doing that, so, to respond to Mr Rennie’s point, I do not think that those issues are insurmountable.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Jenny Gilruth
As I think that I mentioned in response to a previous question, the Government is supportive of the approach. The current guidance requires that parents are notified before the end of the school day, I think, and Mr Johnson’s bill says that it should be done within 24 hours. We are supportive of the approach that has been set out.
We also think that there might be an opportunity to deal with some of this in the guidance that will sit alongside the bill.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Jenny Gilruth
Can Ms Duncan-Glancy give me an example of what that might look like?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Jenny Gilruth
Yes, and that was the point that I was making to Mr Greer when I highlighted the evidence from Barnardo’s. I can say from my experience as a teacher who worked in mainstream education that restraint was not a practice that I was trained in, and nor were the vast majority of my colleagues. If anything, the counter was true.
We need to be mindful that most teachers will not view this as something that sits with them, because they believe that, when it comes to education, their first duty is to educate. Therefore, we need to be careful about that. The fact is that the bill—and, indeed, our guidance—applies to all settings. I have been pushing with officials the question whether we can be a bit clearer about that at stage 2, and we can discuss these points with Mr Johnson as the bill progresses.
I would not want to see an increase in the use of restraint practices; indeed, that is not the purpose of the legislation, as I understand it. However, such practices exist in some settings, and they have to be accompanied by staff who are appropriately trained. Most staff in our education services are not going to find themselves in those circumstances, because they work in mainstream education. As a result, we need to be careful about whom we are talking about.
I am sure that the committee will probe those points with Mr Johnson, but I should say that the trade unions put the same points to me last week when they raised concerns about the message that is being sent.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Jenny Gilruth
I suspect that there probably has been.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Jenny Gilruth
Train the trainer.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Jenny Gilruth
Do you mean between the introduction of the bill and now?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Jenny Gilruth
I have announced the financial support for the university, but I have also set out, in response to the convener, that the SFC is preparing conditions for funding that will support it to do just that. The conditions are important, given that this is public money. I do not think that any MSP at the committee this morning would expect public money to flow out the door without the Government attaching conditions to it, so that advice is coming to me.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Jenny Gilruth
It is fair to say that I would have hoped that we would have been able to move more quickly. There have been other issues in relation to recent changes in the SFC, which we need to be mindful of, but we are here to support this institution. I think that you know that that is the Government’s position. We will continue to engage with the management team and with the SFC, which I will meet very shortly.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Jenny Gilruth
It is difficult to comment on individual incidents, but would we be saying that individual incidents of restraint would always trigger support? I am not necessarily sure that they would. The level of support may vary and look different.
In Scottish education, we place a lot of trust in those who are on the front line. We say that they are the decision makers and that they have the professional skills and knowledge to decide on the best support to put in place. I think that Ms Duncan-Glancy pursued a line of questioning with some of the witnesses about what post-incident support would look like. I am happy to consider that as part of our discussions at stage 2. However, what that would look like would vary according to the individual incidents and individuals in the schools.
