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 1284 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Non-surgical Procedures and Functions of Medical Reviewers (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 February 2026
Gillian Mackay
::I thank the minister for her support and engagement on the amendments.
Amendments 26 and 27 in my name would increase the penalty that could be imposed on a person who is found guilty of an offence under the bill. Section 5(4) of the bill sets out that the maximum penalty that may be provided for in regulations under section 5(1) for a person who commits an offence created by regulations made under that section is, on summary conviction, a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.
Amendment 26 would amend section 5 and allow for a higher level of penalty by increasing the maximum level of fine for offences that may be provided for under regulations. Section 12 of the bill sets out that a person who commits an offence under section 2, 3 or 11 is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, which is currently a maximum of £5,000.
Amendment 27 would amend section 12 and allow for a higher level of penalty by increasing the maximum level of fine for the offences in the bill in sections 2, 3 and 11. Each of those offences would now be triable either on summary procedure or on indictment. The amendments would increase the maximum allowable fine for offences to £20,000 on summary conviction and the fine allowable on conviction on indictment to an unlimited fine.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 19 February 2026
Gillian Mackay
Giving evidence to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, the chief medical officer stated:
“Our prevention agenda is one of the most important things that we can try to do nationally to ensure that we have a sustainable health and care system for the future.”—[Official Report, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, 10 February 2026; c 5.]
It is clear that we need to do more on prevention to keep people well and, over time, to reduce the burden on the national health service. When will we see comprehensive bans on marketing of alcohol, foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar, and vaping?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 19 February 2026
Gillian Mackay
To ask the Scottish Government how the population health framework will help to tackle the commercial determinants of health. (S6O-05532)
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 19 February 2026
Gillian Mackay
To ask the Scottish Government how the population health framework will help to tackle the commercial determinants of health. (S6O-05532)
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 19 February 2026
Gillian Mackay
Giving evidence to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, the chief medical officer stated:
“Our prevention agenda is one of the most important things that we can try to do nationally to ensure that we have a sustainable health and care system for the future.”—[Official Report, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, 10 February 2026; c 5.]
It is clear that we need to do more on prevention to keep people well and, over time, to reduce the burden on the national health service. When will we see comprehensive bans on marketing of alcohol, foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar, and vaping?
Meeting of the Parliament [Last updated 09:33]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 19 February 2026
Gillian Mackay
To ask the Scottish Government how the population health framework will help to tackle the commercial determinants of health. (S6O-05532)
Meeting of the Parliament [Last updated 09:33]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 19 February 2026
Gillian Mackay
Giving evidence to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, the chief medical officer stated:
“Our prevention agenda is one of the most important things that we can try to do nationally to ensure that we have a sustainable health and care system for the future.”—[Official Report, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, 10 February 2026; c 5.]
It is clear that we need to do more on prevention to keep people well and, over time, to reduce the burden on the national health service. When will we see comprehensive bans on marketing of alcohol, foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar, and vaping?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 19 February 2026
Gillian Mackay
::To ask the Scottish Government how the population health framework will help to tackle the commercial determinants of health. (S6O-05532)
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 19 February 2026
Gillian Mackay
::Giving evidence to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, the chief medical officer stated:
“Our prevention agenda is one of the most important things that we can try to do nationally to ensure that we have a sustainable health and care system for the future.”—[Official Report, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, 10 February 2026; c 5.]
It is clear that we need to do more on prevention to keep people well and, over time, to reduce the burden on the national health service. When will we see comprehensive bans on marketing of alcohol, foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar, and vaping?
Meeting of the Parliament [Last updated 11:48]
Airports (US Military Use)
Meeting date: 18 February 2026
Gillian Mackay
I absolutely recognise that, but when vessels come into our waters, our laws apply. Those people were taken in contravention of what the Court of Session said should happen, so it is right that we call the US Government out on it.
Those are not occasional stopovers. That is the routine and sustained use of Prestwick airport as a de facto military base by the US Air Force for training and live military proceedings. Allowing the continued use of our publicly owned airports in that way risks making us complicit in the current and future actions of a foreign Government that has made it clear that it has no intention of sticking within the bounds of international law.
Passenger numbers for Prestwick airport are now at similar levels to those in the late 1990s and are less than half what they were when the airport was nationalised for just £1 in 2013. I would welcome it if the cabinet secretary could provide more information on the current business plan for Prestwick, because it seems clear to me that the financial sustainability of Prestwick is based not on commercial flights but on on-going and routine use by the military.
