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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 1017 contributions
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 September 2025
Elena Whitham
What I am hearing from you both—it is what we have heard from the rest of the witnesses, too, I think—is that there is an element of failure demand driving up ill health or exacerbating health conditions that then tip into worsening health conditions, which perhaps leads people to apply for benefits that they might not have applied for before. However, underpinning that, there is the cost of living, which also drives applications from people who perhaps would not have applied in the past. Is that a correct summation?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 September 2025
Elena Whitham
Earlier, we spoke a little bit about the proposed PIP reforms that were shelved. Do the witnesses have any views on the likelihood of significant eligibility changes to PIP happening in the near future? If such decisions are made, how can the Scottish Government plan for their financial impact?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 September 2025
Elena Whitham
Look at the big issue of winter heating allowance changes and the guddle that was the fallout; this issue is even more complicated given the passporting and the intertwined nature of that. From this committee’s perspective, how we help scrutinise the Scottish Government’s response to such changes, should they come down the line, is a huge issue.
11:00Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 September 2025
Elena Whitham
I am going to discuss the increased disability benefits case load. It has already been touched on quite a bit so, in the interests of brevity, we will try to just tease out some more responses to it.
If you look at the narrative out there, the increase can be seen in some quarters as a terrible thing, and in other quarters as the best thing. It is our duty to look underneath the screaming headlines that we sometimes see in newspapers, which I think lead to a toxic discussion about it and, perhaps, knee-jerk proposed reforms.
Has any real research been undertaken to understand what is driving the increase in people applying for and being successful in receiving disability benefits right across the UK? We are seeing it in every place and we have touched on some of the reasons, but if anybody could add any more detail, it would be really helpful.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 September 2025
Elena Whitham
I have heard a young person who is in receipt of a high-level child disability payment question their own eligibility because of the narrative that is out there. That young person will not be an isolated case, and there is a broader conversation to be had about the toxic narrative.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 9 September 2025
Elena Whitham
I am finding the conversation fascinating. Paul Sweeney’s questions sparked off a thought in my head. Previously, I was community wellbeing spokesperson for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. When we looked at how to end homelessness, we decided to approach it through rapid rehousing transition plans, which are similar to the things that Paul Sweeney was just speaking about.
I was going to ask about how we ensure that the strategy applies to all the levels where decisions need to be made, but you answered that when Paul Sweeney asked about who was responsible for that. My argument to health and social care partnerships was that they would need to release some of their funding, which, traditionally, did not include housing. My argument was that the strategy reads across everything.
How do we actually make sure that that happens? If every department is doing its own programme budgeting and trying to figure out the marginal analysis of that, how are those who are debating acute and preventative spend making sure that the read-across is there? I know that that is a big question, but I think that it is important.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 9 September 2025
Elena Whitham
I used to be a member of a community planning partnership and was involved with all the issues that we are discussing today. I am acutely aware of all the politics and the issues at play.
The committee has done a survey of integration authorities. In the integration authority that I was involved with when I was a councillor, things worked pretty well, and everybody was signed up to the same big aims, which meant that the decisions that were being taken aligned across the areas. However, we are now hearing from health and social care partnerships, including the one in Renfrewshire, that the current financial climate means that it is increasingly difficult to apply the principles in the Scottish Government’s guidance when they allocate resources. I can see that in the health and social care partnership in my area, as it is taking tough decisions that really do not reflect its overall aims. Do you recognise that? Would a PBMA approach make the process easier with regard to disinvestment, as it would use input from all the stakeholders to inform how that marginal analysis is done?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 9 September 2025
Elena Whitham
Given the lack of headroom at the moment, because of the firefighting nature of the decisions that are being taken and some of the barriers that have already been spoken about in terms of understanding the data gaps that we have and the lack of the deep analysis that we need to undertake in that regard, how are decisions about resourcing being made right now across the country? What decision-making process are health boards using to allocate resources at the moment if they are not employing that approach? That might be a difficult question to answer.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 9 September 2025
Elena Whitham
Do you think that that framework would be of benefit to community planning partnerships? If, in the wider local community planning partnership in each local authority area, the partners that are striving for the same aims applied the PBMA approach to all decision making that affected things that the partnership was working on, could that be helpful? I include mental health, drugs and alcohol, health visiting and so on—everything that it is involved in population health.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 9 September 2025
Elena Whitham
That is very helpful. Thank you.