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 1562 contributions
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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Siobhian Brown
I ask Michael Paparakis to comment on that.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Siobhian Brown
I have not seen any data on those specific figures.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Siobhian Brown
Communication between landlord and tenant is vital, especially when it comes to serving notice and bringing the lease to an end, and sections 27 and 28 will resolve the issues with that.
The committee has heard from the Federation of Small Businesses that, in general, it is common for tenants to have problems in getting in touch with their landlord, and not just in the context of serving a document. I understand that some respondents consider that withholding rent because of a failure to provide a UK address is disproportionate, but a majority of consultees who responded to the SLC consultation on the issue were content with the remedy.
Retention of rent is not the sole remedy for the tenant and, of course, it is open to tenants not to exercise the remedy at all or even to retain only a small proportion of the rent. I also point out that the bill sets out a wide range of circumstances in which the remedy cannot be applied. For example, it cannot be applied if a UK postal address for the party is included in the lease or in certain documents that are registered in the land register or recorded in the register of sasines, where the other party to the lease has been given a copy of the document. Further, the provision does not apply to a body corporate or other legal person with a registered office in the UK, and it does not apply where the duration of the lease is less than a year.
That is similar to the statutory provision for residential leases in England and Wales in section 48(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, which addresses the difficulties that residential tenants have when they do not have UK postal addresses for their landlord. I think that the provision will come into force for a very small minority of people who do not have a UK address.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Siobhian Brown
From my understanding, when the Scottish Law Commission drafted the bill, its intention was to make the legislation more accessible, but also to modernise it. I think that someone said that you could google the terminology to find out what it means, but should you need to google a Latin word in 2025?
That is my understanding of the issue. Lori Pidgeon or Michael Paparakis might have further input.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Siobhian Brown
At this stage, yes.
Do you want to add anything, Michael?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Siobhian Brown
I know that a few suggestions have been made to the committee. I will have to go away and consider them with my officials before I comment on any of them.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Siobhian Brown
Yes.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Siobhian Brown
Yes, I know. My advisers have advised that they do not feel that that will be the case, but, if something is flagged up, we will consider it.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Siobhian Brown
We touched on that earlier—the codification in the bill brings all the different parts together to make it more accessible to tenants and landlords. It is all in one place. Michael, do you want to add any more?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 20 May 2025
Siobhian Brown
My view is that the law in that area needs reform.
Different views have been given about what the Rockford Trilogy case involved. Some legal professionals have welcomed the decision, whereas others have not. For some, the decision brings certainty but, for others, it means that the negotiations between the tenant and the landlord at the end of the lease are fraught with difficulties and uncertainties. The committee heard from Steven Blane that the Rockford Trilogy case had added complexity to parties’ negotiations when a lease is coming to an end. The provisions in the bill on giving clear and certain notice in those situations should, in my view, be preferred.
Your original question whether the law needs to be reformed has come up several times in the committee’s evidence sessions. I have seen the responses of some of the legal practitioners and academics to the committee’s calls for views who have said that reform is not needed because the law is well known and works in practice. However, the committee has also heard from representatives of tenants and landlords who say that reform is welcome. The Federation of Small Businesses Scotland told the committee that small businesses welcomed the bill’s
“attempt to modernise ... the legislation”—[Official Report, Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, 6 May 2025; c 25.]
on the termination of commercial leases. The Scottish Property Federation also welcomed the bill and supports bringing together in one place various pieces of common law and statute. The Scottish Law Commission said that, as far back as 2010, it
“was approached by practitioners and solicitors in the commercial leasing area who indicated that the law should be reformed as it was uncertain and was acting as a deterrent to commercial property investment.”—[Official Report, Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, 29 April 2025; c 5.]
Taking those together, the law of termination of commercial leases needs reform. As it stands, the bill will deliver that, but, as I have said previously, I am happy to work with the committee on it.
