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 1316 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee, Health Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting) [Draft]
Reducing Drug Deaths and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 October 2025
Pauline McNeill
My next question is about the way that you engage with the community. There is still a long way to go, given that we are only seven months in, as you said. How regular is the contact with the community to keep it engaged?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting) [Draft]
Reducing Drug Deaths and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 October 2025
Pauline McNeill
It is not at all what I am saying.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting) [Draft]
Reducing Drug Deaths and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 October 2025
Pauline McNeill
I agree that the Thistle is a very impressive set-up and that it is very professional. One of the things that I noted relates to referral services, which are important. I want to ask you about longer-term approaches. Annie Wells asked whether there have been any referrals to rehabilitation services yet. It is early days, so the focus is on getting the service up and running, but do you hope that, at some point fairly soon, we will begin to see such referrals? Obviously, this is about saving lives, but we need to try to get people off the thing that is putting them at risk in the first place. Are you hopeful that we will see more referrals for rehabilitation?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting) [Draft]
Reducing Drug Deaths and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 October 2025
Pauline McNeill
Tricia, is that the view of the local community?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting) [Draft]
Reducing Drug Deaths and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 October 2025
Pauline McNeill
My colleague raised the specific issue of drug dealing. Does that data include drug dealing?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting) [Draft]
Reducing Drug Deaths and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 October 2025
Pauline McNeill
Good morning. I want to continue on that theme. I know Calton well. I have been to the facility and I am aware that, as Tricia Fort said, there has been a lot of apprehension in the local community. That is understandable.
I have noted what you have already said, but the media reporting seems to suggest that there has been an increase in drug-related crime. Is that related at all to what you are telling the committee? Is there any evidence that there has been a reduction or an increase in drug-related crime? Which is it?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting) [Draft]
Reducing Drug Deaths and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 October 2025
Pauline McNeill
Thank you.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting) [Draft]
Reducing Drug Deaths and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 October 2025
Pauline McNeill
I did not mean what was suggested. As you may know, early on, I hosted a meeting in 2018 with and supported the Danish lawyer who had been successful with the idea and who brought it to Scotland, so I am fully committed to it.
I am interested in the longer-term policy. It may be appropriate for Tara Shivaji to answer my next question, as she talked about housing. We know that women tend not to access services, but I want to ask about the vulnerabilities in men who are drug users. If we look ahead to the future of the policy agenda, has any thought been given to what we need to do in the longer term to address those vulnerabilities, particularly given that the number of male users is higher? I would be keen to hear anything that you have to say about that.
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Crime and Policing Bill (UK Parliament Legislation)
Meeting date: 1 October 2025
Pauline McNeill
That is helpful. I tend to agree that, in Scotland, we sometimes do not need specific offences for things that we are already prosecuting. For example, there is a recent trend to, basically, stab people in the body to spike them, and not just spike drinks.
I would like to pick up on the AI generation of images. It is a confusing issue. I think that the Scottish Government attempted to secure amendments to a bill, but I am not sure whether it was this one. I know that there were expedited amendments in the House of Lords.
What I am clear about is that there is a gap in the law around the creation of AI images. If someone has not given their consent, that is quite clear and we can already act, but there seem to be some gaps. As you know, this is a strong interest of mine. At some point it would be useful to hear whether the Scottish Government has made an assessment of whether everything is covered in the legislation.
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Crime and Policing Bill (UK Parliament Legislation)
Meeting date: 1 October 2025
Pauline McNeill
There are quite a lot of wide and varied issues in this LCM—I do not envy you, cabinet secretary.
My question is about the latest mission to reduce violence against women and girls and specifically concerns an issue on which I know that you share my view: the alarming rise in the creation of sexually explicit, artificial, deepfake images. From what I have read, I understand that the UK Government is legislating to make the creation of those images an offence. The last time that I asked a parliamentary question about the issue, I was told that the Scottish Government was considering whether there was a gap in the legislation in that regard. I do not know whether you are able to say anything about that today or whether it is too early, but I would like to know what further progress is being made on the issue of those artificial intelligence-generated images. Are you going to consider whether, after the passing of the UK bill, there might still be a gap that needs to be addressed by the Scottish Government?
