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 1119 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft] Business until 12:46
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 18 November 2025
Elena Whitham
I thank Pam Duncan-Glancy for putting that on the record. The difference, though, is that we do not have a track 2 proposed in the bill before us, and Liam McArthur’s amendments ensure that there will be no consideration of somebody as being terminally ill by dint of their having a disability or a mental health condition. Therefore, I am pretty convinced that we are not going along the same lines as what exists in Canada, and I do not think that the UN committee would see that, either.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 November 2025
Elena Whitham
If we take the 32 local authorities as an example of the public bodies, how can we ensure that wellbeing and sustainable development are threaded into the local outcomes improvement plans that they put in place? Those plans are reportable to the community planning partnerships, which ensure that all the bodies in the local area are pulling in the same direction.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 November 2025
Elena Whitham
Good morning. Keeping on the topic of the national performance framework, can you give us any further information about the review that you mentioned is under way, specifically in relation to how sustainable development and wellbeing requirements will be bolstered to help to deliver the societal change that is needed? Although the 2015 act and the NPF have been in place for a long time, we are still not seeing that being pulled through as a thread into actual outcomes. How will that be bolstered with the review?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 November 2025
Elena Whitham
We have heard a few times from folk who have given evidence to the committee that the existing duties on public bodies through the NPF and related legislation are too weak. How would you respond to that, specifically in relation to the area of wellbeing and sustainable development?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 November 2025
Elena Whitham
I want to explore that aspect a little further. In relation to the review that is being undertaken of the NPF and the national outcomes, can you reassure the committee that you will ensure that wellbeing and sustainable development, which feature in many pieces of legislation but do not have firm definitions, will link further to the United Nations sustainable development goals, so that we can start to have a cohesive plan for ensuring sustainability for future generations?
I understand that the Government is not looking to legislate in that space at the moment, but can you reassure us that we will see such change happening as a result of the review, so that we can better align with the UN sustainable development goals?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 November 2025
Elena Whitham
Like you, I called the national performance framework the national planning framework last week.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 November 2025
Elena Whitham
I wonder whether you recognise that, if the amendment were agreed to, it would create difficulties for an individual who might be in a hospice setting at the end of life and be forced to move out. There has been testimony to that from across the world. When an institutional opt-out is in place, it creates a system in which the person who is at the centre of care is unable to realise their wishes. That can create a lot of stress and anxiety in their final hours.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 November 2025
Elena Whitham
I will further explore that point. The effect of the amendments proposing an institutional and organisational opt-out would be that somebody would not be able to avail themselves of an assisted death in what would essentially be their own home. Having been in and out of many organisational settings where people who are experiencing homelessness reside, I know that that is their home at that point. Is the Salvation Army talking more about its funding being at risk? You cannot uncouple those points, which is maybe where you are trying to go with the amendment. Should organisations have an organisational opt-out, those points would be inextricably linked.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 November 2025
Elena Whitham
I have a lot of sympathy with Jackie Baillie’s amendments, not least those related to domestic abuse, given that I used to work for Scottish Women’s Aid. However, do you think that stating in the bill that the training needs to be done in person will prove problematic for individuals accessing such training across the country, given our geography?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 November 2025
Elena Whitham
I thank the member for taking the intervention.
I want to explore the issue a little further. I am thinking about an individual who might avail themselves of a particular hospice or organisation in their area because that is the closest to them, and who might go there with no intention of ever seeking an assisted death, but who then might change their mind as they approach the end of life, depending on what circumstances are presented to them.
I have had that happen recently with a dear friend’s mum, who is very strongly of a Catholic faith and who, in her last days, decided to use medical assistance in dying in Canada. That would not have been foreseen.
Does the opt-out that the member and others describe in their amendments include any other practitioner from outside that organisation who has opted in going into what is effectively somebody’s home to provide them with a service that they would be eligible for should the bill pass? It is not just about the institution; it encompasses anybody else and prevents them from going in to provide that service.
