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 1895 contributions
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Paul O'Kane
Dr Adam, you said that the Government does not have an expert group on BSL to advise it on the plan. Is it your view that the status that Bòrd na Gàidhlig has as the national body for Gaelic should be replicated for BSL in Scotland? Is that what you are pointing to?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Paul O'Kane
I appreciate the Deputy First Minister’s comments about taking a carrot-and-stick approach in encouraging people to engage in best practice. However, the DFM is very committed to delivering overarching Government policy. What scope is there to revisit the idea that there should be measurable goals, timelines and accountability?
I appreciate what Mr McGowan has just said about taking stock at the end of that three-year period, but is the Deputy First Minister committed to having more tangible timescales on what needs to be done during that time?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Paul O'Kane
I thank the cabinet secretary for the advance sight of her statement, both at the usual time and in her morning press exclusives.
There has been a lot of spin and, in the statement, there is a myriad of excuses, but the reality is that there is also failure. For all the rhetoric that we have had from the First Minister and the cabinet secretary, after the Scottish National Party’s 18 years in office, relative child poverty, after housing costs, has fallen by only 1 per cent. When the cabinet secretary says that rates are “broadly ... stable”, what she really means is that the dial has not shifted.
On the two-child limit, over the history of that policy, Scottish Labour has been consistently clear that we want it to be scrapped, but the haphazard and last-minute decision to include its mitigation in the budget makes a mockery of the claim that the cabinet secretary made over many years that she was powerless to do anything about it. I note the letter that has been issued before we meet her this afternoon, which outlines that applications will be open but does not say when payments will be made. It also talks about using Scottish child payment data—the cabinet secretary was not willing to admit to that in the past.
On the wider picture facing Scotland’s young people and the root causes of child poverty, responsibility for failing to meet the targets lies with the Scottish Government. It is the SNP that failed to deliver on its commitments to expand free school meals; it is the SNP that stripped employability services to the bone; and it is the SNP that created a housing emergency, with 10,000 children in temporary accommodation. Is it not the truth that more of the same will not deliver the 2030 targets and that the SNP Government is out of ideas and out of time to meaningfully reduce child poverty?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Paul O'Kane
On Saturday we received the sad news of the passing of Councillor Betty Cunningham, a former provost of East Renfrewshire, who was known to many members on all sides of the chamber and who was described as a “force of nature”. Among her many achievements, Betty was responsible for setting up an international trust after visiting Kaponda in Malawi in 2007. The trust has supported the provision of education, healthcare, and agricultural skills and opportunities, as well as taking hundreds of young people on cultural exchanges to Malawi.
One of the key areas of interest there is oral health. Can the cabinet secretary say how the Government is partnering with charitable organisations such as the Betty Cunningham International Trust on projects such as MalDent? Does he agree that continuing such partnerships is a fitting legacy for people such as Betty, who had such a love for and connection with Malawi?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 May 2025
Paul O'Kane
Given what you have said about the Scottish Government’s investment in whole-family wellbeing and employability services, do you expect the poverty rate for lone parent families to decrease over the period in trying to meet those targets?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 May 2025
Paul O'Kane
I know that colleagues will talk about data and that we have already spoken about the child payment—I think that we are all agreed on its importance and on some of the anecdotal evidence that has been raised—but I have a final question under this theme on the modelling that the Government is using.
A year ago, many of your colleagues—and, I think, you, as the cabinet secretary—were speaking about 100,000 children being lifted out of poverty. That was shown not to be the case. I think that the UK Statistics Authority wrote to the Government in that regard. The figure was then corrected to 60,000 children being kept out of poverty, and we are now at a figure of 40,000 children being kept out of poverty. Will you clarify whether the 40,000 figure is the accurate one in the Government’s view? How certain are you of the modelling that you are now using to establish that figure? Everyone around the table wants to make sure that we are dealing with accuracy, because it is such an important policy.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 May 2025
Paul O'Kane
On the Scottish Government’s policy on the two-child limit and the background work that has been done on that, we have had a lot of conversation this morning about the need to take decisions over a period of time. The two-child limit was brought in in 2017, and the Government’s policy was that it was not going to mitigate the impact of the limit because it said that it could not. It then introduced the policy that we are discussing this morning, and the cabinet secretary gave figures on the modelling on the impact that that will have on Scotland.
I have asked a number of times when the policy decision was made by the Government. I asked at committee when we originally discussed the proposal, and I know that the finance secretary was asked at the Finance and Public Administration Committee when that decision was made. I have had to ask parliamentary questions, and I have made freedom of information requests, but I cannot get an answer to exactly when the decision was made. It is important in the context of understanding what work on the issue was being done prior to that decision. Will the cabinet secretary put on the record when she took the decision and, if she is not willing to do that, will she say why she is not willing to do that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 May 2025
Paul O'Kane
So, you are not going to say when you took the decision to—
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 May 2025
Paul O'Kane
With respect, you have not, because you have not given me the date on which you took the decision. I am interested in what work was done prior to that, given that the Government spent a long time saying that it could not take action. If you can give me a date, that would be really helpful.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 May 2025
Paul O'Kane
The cabinet secretary has made that point to me many times, and that is her view. However, she does not support any of the revenue-raising measures that the UK Government has taken, including the changes to national insurance, the changes to inheritance tax and the levy on energy companies, so I am keen to understand whether she has any suggestions about how the UK Government should raise revenue.