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.
Filter your results Hide all filters
Displaying 2155 contributions
|
Meeting of the Parliament [Last updated 19:22]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 26 February 2026
Paul O'Kane
::To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has reportedly reduced the funding it provides to the Mark Scott leadership for life award programme for 2026-27. (S6O-05563)
Meeting of the Parliament [Last updated 19:22]
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 26 February 2026
Paul O'Kane
::More than a decade ago, a former Scottish National Party First Minister promised to close the poverty-related attainment gap, and, five years ago, the current First Minister promised a parliamentary session that was focused on Covid recovery in our schools. This week’s attainment and initial leaver destination statistics show that he and his Government have failed in that task. The gap between those from the most and least deprived backgrounds who go on to positive destinations widened compared with the previous year. The gap in relation to those leaving school with five or more passes at Scottish credit and qualifications framework level 4 and level 6 also increased compared with both last year and 2018-19. At all levels, the gap in relation to those leaving with one national, higher or advanced higher qualification has widened since 2018-19.
Does the First Minister agree that that widening gap does not represent a strong recovery, as his cabinet secretary appeared to claim? Does he also accept that, after 19 years in charge, his party is nowhere near close to closing the poverty-related attainment gap?
Meeting of the Parliament [Last updated 19:22]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 26 February 2026
Paul O'Kane
::That answer is simply not good enough. The Scottish Government has tried this before: it tried to cut funding for that vital work a few years ago, but it was forced into a U-turn by cross-party opposition. I pay tribute to the former First Minister, Humza Yousaf, who personally intervened to ensure that the funding would be reinstated. However, we are back where we started.
The award commemorates the life of a man who was murdered in senseless sectarian violence. It provides opportunities to hundreds of young people every year from Scotland’s most deprived communities to learn and to come together. Niall and Judith Scott, Mark’s parents, have written to the minister and to the First Minister but have received no response. That is outrageous. When will they receive a response? Does the minister not agree that cutting investment in preventative youth work for the sake of saving £45,000 is short-sighted? Will she look again at that decision?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 26 February 2026
Paul O'Kane
::To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has reportedly reduced the funding it provides to the Mark Scott leadership for life award programme for 2026-27. (S6O-05563)
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
General Question Time
Meeting date: 26 February 2026
Paul O'Kane
::That answer is simply not good enough. The Scottish Government has tried this before: it tried to cut funding for that vital work a few years ago, but it was forced into a U-turn by cross-party opposition. I pay tribute to the former First Minister, Humza Yousaf, who personally intervened to ensure that the funding would be reinstated. However, we are back where we started.
The award commemorates the life of a man who was murdered in senseless sectarian violence. It provides opportunities to hundreds of young people every year from Scotland’s most deprived communities to learn and to come together. Niall and Judith Scott, Mark’s parents, have written to the minister and to the First Minister but have received no response. That is outrageous. When will they receive a response? Does the minister not agree that cutting investment in preventative youth work for the sake of saving £45,000 is short-sighted? Will she look again at that decision?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 26 February 2026
Paul O'Kane
::More than a decade ago, a former Scottish National Party First Minister promised to close the poverty-related attainment gap, and, five years ago, the current First Minister promised a parliamentary session that was focused on Covid recovery in our schools. This week’s attainment and initial leaver destination statistics show that he and his Government have failed in that task. The gap between those from the most and least deprived backgrounds who go on to positive destinations widened compared with the previous year. The gap in relation to those leaving school with five or more passes at Scottish credit and qualifications framework level 4 and level 6 also increased compared with both last year and 2018-19. At all levels, the gap in relation to those leaving with one national, higher or advanced higher qualification has widened since 2018-19.
Does the First Minister agree that that widening gap does not represent a strong recovery, as his cabinet secretary appeared to claim? Does he also accept that, after 19 years in charge, his party is nowhere near close to closing the poverty-related attainment gap?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Group-based Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation
Meeting date: 25 February 2026
Paul O'Kane
::Given that you have been in your current role for, I think, four years and you have extensive experience beyond that, were you surprised that there had not been that level of work prior to November and prior to pulling together those proposals, which seemed quite quick and rushed to some of us? Were you surprised that that work had not been on-going among the four inspectorates?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Group-based Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation
Meeting date: 25 February 2026
Paul O'Kane
::Thanks, Mr Naylor. That is useful for the committee’s consideration. I do not want to do a disservice to the work that has been done because we are making progress, which is important, and you have clearly done work previously.
I will pivot to Bill Kidd’s line of questioning. We heard that there are cross-border issues that the various agencies are working on. Will you expand on where the interaction is happening? Is there a particular issue in terms of large urban centres? In the city of Glasgow, for example, there are known issues around the transport network in and around Central station. What interaction is happening on that?
I heard Professor Jay mention that there was a particular cross-border issue between Ireland and the north of England at one point. I am interested to know whether there is a similar issue with the proximity of Northern Ireland to Scotland in relation to trafficking and other such issues. What interaction would Police Scotland have with the port of Cairnryan, for example, which is the major link? What does the issue look like in a Scottish context? Is it a predominantly urban issue in and around transport hubs?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Group-based Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation
Meeting date: 25 February 2026
Paul O'Kane
::At the outset, I remind the committee that my husband is a registered social worker and a service manager in children and families social work.
Good morning to the panel. Professor Jay, the last time that you were with us, you and I had an exchange about the progress of the review and some of the complexities and confusions. We are a number of months on. I have heard some of this already this morning, but is it your view that things are progressing well? Will the review be able to pull together many of the themes that we discussed when you were with us before Christmas and those that we have discussed this morning?
11:15
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Group-based Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation
Meeting date: 25 February 2026
Paul O'Kane
::That is a useful overview.
I will ask a final question—I was going to put the same point to Police Scotland. I appreciate that there will be limitations on what you can say about any operational matters or on-going investigations. There is sometimes, from some quarters, a sense that we in Scotland do not have the type of county lines problem that exists in other parts of the UK, so it would be good to get a sense of the situation from you. I represent the west coast outwith Glasgow, and I see evidence of some of those issues in some of our coastal communities in particular. It would be useful to hear any reflections from Police Scotland on that.
