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 533 contributions
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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny
Meeting date: 28 October 2025
Meghan Gallacher
Thank you, convener. We have discussed lobbying the Scottish and UK Governments. Given that council tax revenue makes up roughly 15 to 20 per cent of councils’ overall budgets, do our witnesses believe that this year’s budget could result in another reduction in services? Is it possible that, rather than growing provision in areas of need, there might be a reduction in statutory services? I am thinking about areas such as education, social care and environmental services, which are areas in which people see the impact of direct cuts on their communities.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny
Meeting date: 28 October 2025
Meghan Gallacher
When it comes to council tax reform, I am interested to hear whether the cabinet secretary believes that, as a point of principle, households on council tax bands E and upwards should pay more in council tax.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny
Meeting date: 28 October 2025
Meghan Gallacher
Thank you, convener. Good morning, cabinet secretary and officials. I am interested to hear the cabinet secretary’s view on local authorities being able to increase council tax next year as they see fit.
Last year, in the 2025-26 financial year, we saw Falkirk Council increase its council tax by 15.6 per cent. I am increasingly concerned that if councils follow in that same mind this year, it will have consequences for council tax payers—individuals and families who might be struggling to meet those increased costs.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny
Meeting date: 28 October 2025
Meghan Gallacher
My question is not for this panel—apologies.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny
Meeting date: 28 October 2025
Meghan Gallacher
I thank the cabinet secretary for her answer, but I hope that she also understands the huge pressure on core budgets. There are areas in which there has been no ring fencing and there are services that have not been protected effectively by the ring fencing of Scottish Government funding. Those are the areas in which there are decreases and cuts to services.
I turn to the issues that councils will be grappling with. We have heard in our evidence sessions that local government is required to meet the pay demands of workers. Heading into budgets, discussions will be on-going on that and also on the growing dissatisfaction with council services. You will have heard Unison’s evidence, which claimed that that was “dangerous”. There is a reduced level of trust in local government, and the number of complaints about council services has increased by 21 per cent over the past year.
I am interested in hearing the cabinet secretary’s view on how she will assist local government with those situations, to find solutions to the issues and to ensure that we do not go into local government budget setting with communities put against councils that are just trying to tackle the financial pressures that they experience in their own local authority areas?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny
Meeting date: 28 October 2025
Meghan Gallacher
I hear the point that the cabinet secretary is making, but it is important to say that, if points of principle are not set out and the Government does not clearly set out its intentions—bearing in mind that it has taken nearly two decades for the Scottish Government to get to a point at which it is conducting another consultation on council tax—we could end up in a situation in which a consultation is had but members in the next session of Parliament do not agree and the conversation stops again. Does the cabinet secretary agree that there is a risk of that, given—
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Portfolio Priorities and Cladding Remediation Programme
Meeting date: 7 October 2025
Meghan Gallacher
Good morning. Before I move on to my questions regarding single building assessments, how many buildings could be contained in a single building assessment? That is important for transparency and making sure that we have the full picture.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Portfolio Priorities and Cladding Remediation Programme
Meeting date: 7 October 2025
Meghan Gallacher
I will pick up Evelyn Tweed’s initial line of questioning on the affordable homes target. The funding for that was reduced in previous years and although its level has now been reinstated, that is still a real-terms cut. I am looking for reassurance from you, cabinet secretary, that that will not happen in future years in order to give certainty to the market, particularly when you are trying to meet affordable house building targets.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Portfolio Priorities and Cladding Remediation Programme
Meeting date: 7 October 2025
Meghan Gallacher
I understand. The issue is about having certainty of funding, and I appreciate that you have talked about providing multiyear funding.
It has taken 18 years for the Government to elevate housing to a cabinet secretary post. We have got there—I am pleased that we have done so—but it should not have taken that long.
You mentioned investing up to £4.9 billion over the next four years. I refer to the report by CIH Scotland, Shelter Scotland and the SFHA, which says that you will need almost to double that amount—I think that you will need £8.2 billion as opposed to £4.9 billion—to invest in housing and to build the number of homes that are required in order to tackle the housing emergency overall.
Will the cabinet secretary review the target of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032 and update it to the 15,000 homes that is said will be needed each year? Are you looking into that? What is your response to the calls to double the investment from other housing spokespeople and charitable organisations?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Portfolio Priorities and Cladding Remediation Programme
Meeting date: 7 October 2025
Meghan Gallacher
I understand where the cabinet secretary is coming from. The national director of CIH Scotland has said that the
“£4.9 billion is a welcome demonstration of intent, but it fails to meet Scotland’s social and affordable housing need and resolve the housing emergency.”
Without investing more, is there a real risk that we will not be able to tackle the housing emergency? Is that work still the top priority of Government?
