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 1647 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 8 May 2025
Jackie Dunbar
Will the First Minister comment on the importance of a just transition for energy workers? I say to Conservative members that I do not find it funny.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 8 May 2025
Jackie Dunbar
Harbour Energy, which is the largest independent oil and gas firm in the North Sea and is based in my Aberdeen Donside constituency, has announced that it will cut around 250 onshore jobs in Scotland. It has put the blame squarely at the feet of the Labour United Kingdom Government and its policies.
Successive UK Governments have ignored warnings about job losses and treated Aberdeen as a cash cow, and efforts to deliver a just transition are being undermined. What assessment has the Scottish Government made of the on-going situation? Will the First Minister join me in writing to the UK Government to urge it to take the action that is required to support jobs in Scotland’s energy sector—[Interruption.]
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Victory in Europe Day (80th Anniversary)
Meeting date: 8 May 2025
Jackie Dunbar
It is an honour to speak in today’s debate commemorating the 80th anniversary of VE day, as we remember the sacrifices that made VE day possible.
The First Minister said today that we all naturally think about how the lives of our own families were affected by the war. The stories that have come from across the chamber today have reflected that.
My first thoughts are of my granddad, Private James Dunbar. He served with the Gordon Highlanders and was captured with the 51st Highland division at St Valery. When granddad left home to serve his country, my dad was just weeks old. After years as a prisoner of war—of which he rarely spoke later—victory in Europe meant that he got home safe. He got home to my granny and their bairns, including my dad, who was by then five years old and had no memory of ever meeting his dad, so to him it was a first meeting. My granddad got to enjoy the peace and freedoms that he fought for and he got to see his children and grandchildren grow up with those.
That was not the case for thousands of others who served during that war, including 57,000 Scots. Today, as we remember those who lost their lives during world war two and those who contributed to the war effort across that time, I urge folk also to reflect on what they fought for.
VE day was a victory for democracy. It ensured freedoms for folk across Europe. In its aftermath, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was agreed and concerted efforts were made to maintain and build on what was secured with the end of that long and bloody war. There was a recognition that peace for their time was not enough and that building a lasting peace is an on-going process.
Scotland has enjoyed 80 years of peace since then, but across the world we are seeing democracy, human rights and basic freedoms increasingly under threat. We cannot afford to just paper over the cracks. We owe it to those who sacrificed so much to make peace happen in the first place to ensure that it continues for decades more to come.
We also owe it to them, and to the veterans who since then have helped to maintain that peace, to ensure that we look after those who served and their families. Charities such as Poppyscotland, Legion Scotland, Forces Children Scotland and many others go above and beyond to ensure that people do not slip through the support net that we have in place. They support and stand up for everyone who is part of the armed forces family. I put on record my appreciation for the work that they do.
I finish on the point that, 80 years on from VE day, there are not many veterans from world war two left. The youngest, who would have been just teenagers at the end of the war, are nearing 100 years of age. The second world war is fading from living memory. The next few years will be the last chance that we have to hear about world war two at first hand, rather than just reading about it in history books. I hope that folk will take that chance to speak to the veterans that we have left, not just about what they did, but about why they did it, why it was so important to win that war and why it is so important that we build peace and commit to not repeating the mistakes of the past. Their legacy is the peace that they secured and built on, and we need to ensure that that legacy is passed on to generations to come.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Jackie Dunbar
Will the member take an intervention?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Jackie Dunbar
Good morning, and thank you for attending. The responses to the call for views were generally supportive of the proposals to move support for further education students to the Student Awards Agency Scotland. What do you see as the main impacts of that change?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Jackie Dunbar
Okay—thank you.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Jackie Dunbar
You have touched on the other question that I was going to ask. Concerns were also raised around the model of delivery for further education student support. Some responses said that colleges might have less flexibility in delivery. What are your views on that? How will the delivery of the support change?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Jackie Dunbar
Yes—to SAAS.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Jackie Dunbar
Professor Seaton, do you have any views on that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Jackie Dunbar
As I did with the first panel, I will ask a couple of questions about college student support. Some responses to the call for views raised concerns about the ability of the SAAS systems to cope with further student support responsibilities. My question is for Catherine Topley. How confident is SAAS that it can deliver not only the existing responsibilities but the new ones?
