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 1302 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
I have given my answer to the convener. I apologise if that was how that came across.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
I made clear last night that the matter is subject to on-going consideration and that the Government will consider its position by 26 September. I have made clear that the work that the member in charge has undertaken over recent months and has shared with me, as well as my own engagement and the work that my officials have been undertaking, will be used to inform that.
I should now make clear that this is not a Government-supported bill. There is no formal requirement on the Government to provide support. However, I have continued to engage with Ms Smith and to provide requested information, and I have continued to engage with key bodies. This will go through the normal Cabinet process. I am not able to give any further information on dates, but I assure the committee that the decision will be made and announced prior to 26 September.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
I cannot discuss those processes. As I said, if you would like some further information, I am happy to bring in Kirstie McKerron.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
If I could seek further clarity from—
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
That is not what I am saying—
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
I am sorry, Ms Duncan-Glancy, but it is not the Government’s responsibility to figure out the costs of the bill. This is a member’s bill, and the responsibility lies with the member to bring the final costs of the bill, and the implications of that, to Parliament or the Government, to help to inform our decision on a financial resolution. Liz Smith has worked to address some of those costs, but here has been no engagement by Ms Smith with the trade unions, for example, to hear their concerns about the workforce implications and the costs that could be attached to them. There are still a number of unknowns.
As I say, a legitimate process is in place to help to ensure that Parliament does not walk into a scenario of unknown costs. We have the costs that are attached to the bill at the moment, but our estimation is that those will grow rapidly, based on a number of the issues that remain outstanding.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
I will bring in Saskia Kearns to speak to some of the further work that has been done.
We have engaged with stakeholders, and we know that supporting children with additional support needs in relation to residential outdoor education is a highly complex issue. There are a number of children and young people out there with varying degrees of support needs. Some outdoor residential education centres are already well equipped to support those children, but that is not the case across the board. Initial analysis, and my engagement with the process, has shown us that some centres are not fully equipped to support children with a range of additional support needs. Again, this is variable, but we know that the costs attached to supporting children with additional support needs to attend residential trips can be up to £1,000 per child. More work needs done on that.
I know that Ms Smith introduced proposals and attached a £1.5 million figure to the cost of supporting children with additional support needs; however, I believe that that estimate was based solely on children in special schools and did not include those in mainstream schools. We know that there are a number of children in mainstream schools with additional support needs, so I believe that the cost would be higher than that.
There is also an issue about staff ratios to support children with additional support needs, because we know that, depending on a child’s or a young person’s needs, there might need to be more than one member of staff. Work has been done on that issue, but I do not think that the timeframe quite fits if we are to fully understand the implications around it.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
This is a member’s bill. I have been clear about what the Government has done, and we have made efforts.
I will bring in Saskia in case I have missed anything.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
Given the current financial context, I do not believe that I can sit here and tell you a figure that is affordable. Introducing any new duties to fund in the current financial context would force difficult choices about what to defund to accommodate new expenditure. That difficulty is compounded by the fact that, as I have already said, the total potential costs of the provisions are not clear, due to outstanding gaps in the available data. Even if I were to quote a figure, that figure would rise, because unknown costs would be attached to it. It is therefore very difficult to produce any figure that is affordable.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
If the pilot approach was the approach that was decided on, it would ensure that control. I agree that it would cover only a certain number of children and young people, but it would allow the Government to gather the necessary data so that, if a national roll-out followed, no children and young people were missing out.
I would put that point back to Liz Smith. I believe that the bill as drafted does not fit in with that policy, because there absolutely would be children and young people who would miss out on those opportunities under the bill as drafted.
