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 2510 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament [Last updated 19:31]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Siobhian Brown
Non-fatal strangulation is heinous behaviour that is criminal under Scots law and can be dealt with using a range of offences. We resource Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, which independently enforce the criminal offences such as assault and domestic abuse that can be used to hold perpetrators to account. We have also ensured that new laws criminalising strangulation in pornography, introduced through the United Kingdom Crime and Policing Bill, will extend to Scotland.
We keep laws under review and a public consultation will be published shortly, seeking views on a range of gender-based violence issues, including non-fatal strangulation. That is in line with our programme for government commitment. It will also include specific consideration on how better to record data in the criminal justice system on cases involving non-fatal strangulation.
Meeting of the Parliament [Last updated 19:31]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Siobhian Brown
I hope that the member is able to look back at my initial response, in which I set out the work that we are currently doing.
We understand that we need to improve our understanding of the prevalence of non-fatal strangulation, and we know that more needs to be done. Alongside our robust Scottish laws, we are clear that more needs to be done to understand the prevalence of non-fatal strangulation. Through the Scottish crime and justice survey, we have taken steps to find out about its prevalence in Scotland, and the initial results will be available for 2026-27. The forthcoming Scottish Government consultation will also seek views on how the matter can best be addressed and how we can legislate in future.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Siobhian Brown
Non-fatal strangulation is heinous behaviour that is criminal under Scots law and can be dealt with using a range of offences. We resource Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, which independently enforce the criminal offences such as assault and domestic abuse that can be used to hold perpetrators to account. We have also ensured that new laws criminalising strangulation in pornography, introduced through the United Kingdom Crime and Policing Bill, will extend to Scotland.
We keep laws under review and a public consultation will be published shortly, seeking views on a range of gender-based violence issues, including non-fatal strangulation. That is in line with our programme for government commitment. It will also include specific consideration on how better to record data in the criminal justice system on cases involving non-fatal strangulation.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Siobhian Brown
I hope that the member is able to look back at my initial response, in which I set out the work that we are currently doing.
We understand that we need to improve our understanding of the prevalence of non-fatal strangulation, and we know that more needs to be done. Alongside our robust Scottish laws, we are clear that more needs to be done to understand the prevalence of non-fatal strangulation. Through the Scottish crime and justice survey, we have taken steps to find out about its prevalence in Scotland, and the initial results will be available for 2026-27. The forthcoming Scottish Government consultation will also seek views on how the matter can best be addressed and how we can legislate in future.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Siobhian Brown
I will take an intervention from Ruth Maguire.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Siobhian Brown
Thirdly, the committee asked the Government to provide support for relevant support services. The draft budget includes £400,000 to further support implementation of our strategic approach to challenging demand for prostitution. We will also provide an additional £65,000 in the next financial year to the Women’s Support Project, improving access to services and supporting women exiting prostitution.
I now turn to the detail of the bill—
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Siobhian Brown
I will come to that. I do not believe that we can move forward with it, as we have only six weeks left. One of the issues is support. [Interruption.] There is no detail on support in the bill, and we would like to consult, especially with women who are currently in prostitution, on what support they would like. We would not have time to do that in the next couple of weeks, let alone months.
Those who provided evidence to the committee, and indeed the committee itself, have pointed to concerns that some women who are involved in prostitution say that their safety would be at risk. Without the necessary time to consult and to develop proposals to ensure their safety, we cannot support the bill as drafted. [Interruption.]
The committee’s report clearly outlines the differing—
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Siobhian Brown
I will.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Siobhian Brown
I share the passion and the drive that have been clearly evident from all of today’s contributions. This is self-evidently a complex and sensitive issue that needs to be addressed in a way that everyone can agree on, particularly women who are involved in prostitution. Ms Regan and other members have spoken in defence of the bill, but we cannot ignore the voices of women involved in prostitution who have said that they will be at risk of violence and harm if it is passed.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Siobhian Brown
That has not been our argument whatsoever.
I support the committee’s recommendation to establish an independent commission on the issue, because, importantly, that will allow for further engagement with women who are currently involved in selling sex and offer an opportunity to hear from those with technical experience on how best to respond to online exploitation, specifically in relation to the support that women need. There is currently no detail in the bill on that and, if it were to progress, we would have no time to consult or engage with women in prostitution at the moment.
Further work is also clearly needed to ensure that future legislation is deliverable for the police. I am sure that many members will be aware of the concerns that Police Scotland raised yesterday about operational costs that could arise as a result of the bill. In relation to what Fergus Ewing said regarding yesterday’s announcement from Police Scotland, I highlight that that was the first time that I had seen those figures, but I am told that that was in response to a question that Ms Dowey from the Conservatives asked in the committee’s meeting on 5 November last year.
We have also heard about the issues with the bill as drafted relating to the definition of the criminal aspect in the bill and to enforcement. For example, in its briefing to MSPs, the Law Society of Scotland, which does not take a position on any of the bill’s policy intentions, states that it envisages that
“the behaviours excluded from the scope of the proposed offence may lead to confusion”,
and it agrees with the committee’s stage 1 recommendation that any new proposed offence should
“have a clear definition consistent with current legislation and the policy intentions of the Bill.”
I will reflect on some of the contributions from members. I appreciate that the issue is very emotive, but I feel that some members have been very disingenuous in relation to some of the facts that they have portrayed. Liam Kerr, you referred to the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill as one of the reasons for having time for all these amendments—
