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 1242 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 April 2025
Paul McLennan
Apologies, convener, but I am not finished yet.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Building Safety and Maintenance
Meeting date: 22 April 2025
Paul McLennan
You make a really important point. You are right: if somebody goes in and addresses the issue with antifungal paint, it might do the job for a short period of time, but the mould will just come back again very shortly afterwards.
One of the keys things in the consultation—you picked up on the point—is about working with local authorities on the technology in that area and ensuring that what we do is more sustainable and long term. It should not just be a case of doing a paint-over job because, within a year or two, the problem will come back, so that will not solve the situation in the medium to long term. It is very much about working with local authorities on ensuring that the technology that is coming forward—there are various initiatives in that regard—leads to longer-term, sustainable action. We will be consulting the regulator and local authorities on that issue. Again, I can come back to the committee on that.
As you said, it is something that the regulator reports on, and we will be discussing the matter with the regulator. I do not know whether any of my colleagues want to add anything.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Building Safety and Maintenance
Meeting date: 22 April 2025
Paul McLennan
You make a really important point. You are right: if somebody goes in and addresses the issue with antifungal paint, it might do the job for a short period of time, but the mould will just come back again very shortly afterwards.
One of the keys things in the consultation—you picked up on the point—is about working with local authorities on the technology in that area and ensuring that what we do is more sustainable and long term. It should not just be a case of doing a paint-over job because, within a year or two, the problem will come back, so that will not solve the situation in the medium to long term. It is very much about working with local authorities on ensuring that the technology that is coming forward—there are various initiatives in that regard—leads to longer-term, sustainable action. We will be consulting the regulator and local authorities on that issue. Again, I can come back to the committee on that.
As you said, it is something that the regulator reports on, and we will be discussing the matter with the regulator. I do not know whether any of my colleagues want to add anything.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Building Safety and Maintenance
Meeting date: 22 April 2025
Paul McLennan
I am happy to write to you to try to provide more clarity on that. As I said, there is complexity in that the buildings are all slightly different. We all want the remediation to be concluded, progressed and moved on as soon as possible. I am happy for Alan Johnston to drop you a note on the specific points that he mentioned in his contribution.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Building Safety and Maintenance
Meeting date: 22 April 2025
Paul McLennan
I have regular meetings with colleagues on the various states of programmes in the pilot and on any other issues that come up. I will bring in Alan Johnston on the point about day-to-day work.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Building Safety and Maintenance
Meeting date: 22 April 2025
Paul McLennan
When the new UK Government came in, one of the key things for me was to ensure that there was a four-Government response, which is really important. Initially, we had a discussion with the UK Government minister to say that we needed to work together more closely. We also had a meeting before the Grenfell inquiry report came out. In addition, I think that an intergovernmental meeting is coming up.
The issue of cladding, and Grenfell in particular, is being discussed at ministerial level. We have all given our reassurance that those discussions will continue, which has been welcomed. Officials are working very closely on the approach.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Building Safety and Maintenance
Meeting date: 22 April 2025
Paul McLennan
It has all been very constructive. We can write to the committee when the contract is agreed.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Building Safety and Maintenance
Meeting date: 22 April 2025
Paul McLennan
As part of our response to the Grenfell inquiry, we pulled together a group of experts in the sector to look at our response and to address the issues. That was an issue that the group picked up. We remain confident about our position going forward. We will engage with the UK Government and other Government colleagues as well as the sector as we progress with our response to the Grenfell inquiry.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Building Safety and Maintenance
Meeting date: 22 April 2025
Paul McLennan
Alan, do you want to add anything on the discussions we have with UK Government colleagues on cladding?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Building Safety and Maintenance
Meeting date: 22 April 2025
Paul McLennan
I will comment on the broader issue of the construction sector in the UK. All Governments in the UK are looking at that, because we know that the average age of people working in the construction sector is 58 or 59. All Governments have to pick up that, and they have done so over a period. The member raised a really important point.
The committee has heard from Stephen Garvin and Alan Johnston on the capacity of the sector to deal with Grenfell and cladding issues. We are pretty confident about current capacity, but the broader issue around the construction sector is important, because we have an aging construction sector at an important time. All Governments in the UK are picking up and are working collectively on that.
On some of your other points, we have talked about going through the pilot programme. We will come back to you on that and be as specific as we possibly can.
On the open call, we mentioned that there are 32 expressions of interest. An SBA normally takes eight to 10 weeks to deal with, and we are engaging on that. We are planning to launch stage 2 before a number of the SBAs are completed, so it will almost run into that process and flow from there. One of the key issues, as we have learned, is to make sure that the process moves as quickly as possible, hence why we are launching stage 2 in June.
I would imagine, given the response that we have had, that the number will continue to grow beyond 32. The SBAs will be carried out and we will see what remediation work is required beyond that. The intention is to move on that as soon as possible.
I am happy to keep the committee up to date with the number of open call expressions of interest that come through, with the caveat that we will have to check them against the criteria and so on. I am happy to come back to or to write to the committee on that point, but the intention of bringing forward stage 2 in June is to undertake it as soon as possible, and for us to then move on to the remediation process as well as on to what we are doing through the pilot programme. It is a moveable feast—that is the best way to describe it. We are happy to come back to the committee or to write to Ms Gallacher on that point.
