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 1774 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 September 2025
Douglas Lumsden
How much battery storage do you have in that pathway, then?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 September 2025
Douglas Lumsden
Okay, thank you. I have a final question on electricity. Your modelling suggests no new gas plants, even with carbon capture and storage in Scotland going ahead. Will you say a bit about why you have come up with that? Nuclear will be dropping off in the next three years in Scotland, so what will our baseload be and how will we achieve it when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 September 2025
Douglas Lumsden
I will go back to the issue of electricity prices, which we touched on earlier, because it is so important.
Electrification is key to meeting our future targets. James Richardson, you said that electricity must be more affordable. How confident are you that electricity prices will start coming down in the future and what factors will mean that those prices do come down?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 September 2025
Douglas Lumsden
I need to pick up on a couple of those points. You said that market distortion—I think that was how you described it—is making electricity more expensive. What are the factors that make it more expensive? Are there levies or other things in people’s bills that make the cost higher than how much it actually costs to make that energy? What are those things?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 September 2025
Douglas Lumsden
Looking at the next CFD round, we see that the prices are still on the increase. You say that it is a legacy cost, but it is still going to be with us for a long time.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 September 2025
Douglas Lumsden
Yes—thank you, convener. What is the importance of the Acorn project in helping us to reach net zero? What percentage will it account for? What amount of carbon emissions can it remove in helping us to meet our carbon budget targets?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Douglas Lumsden
You asked Tim Eagle whether he felt that common law was sufficient to deal with a situation in which people who were involved in game management had caused damage through their use of non-tracks and so on. From your experience, do you feel that those laws are sufficient, or do you think that the bill needs to address that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Douglas Lumsden
I wish to vote against amendments 282 and 285.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Douglas Lumsden
Yes.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 June 2025
Douglas Lumsden
I will be happy to move amendment 545, which would insert only three little words but which I think is quite important for the section. Section 23(2) substitutes a new subparagraph in paragraph 7 of schedule 1A to the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1991—the wording has been simplified and condensed, and the former paragraphs 7(4)(b), 7(4)(c)(i) and 7(4)(c)(ii) have been merged. In so doing, it appears that a few words have been omitted from paragraph 7(4)(b), which has changed the meaning of the subparagraph and rendered it meaningless. I believe that it was intended to include surplus housing and other fixed equipment provided by the landlord at the time when rent review is being used for a non-agricultural purpose. However, the omission of the words “that is used” means that it includes only fixed equipment provided by the landlord for a non-agricultural purpose. It would be very unusual for fixed equipment to be provided at the outset for a non-agricultural purpose, but it is quite common for fixed equipment to be provided for an agricultural purpose but to be used subsequently for a non-agricultural purpose—such as surplus housing.
Without amendment 545, the rent review provisions would not envisage rent accounting for houses that are surplus to the agricultural purposes of the farm. That would be an inequitable position when a tenant has a house that they are getting benefit from, whether in monetary terms or in kind—for example, to provide low-rent housing for family members—but they are not accounting for that asset in rent to their landlord. It is essential for fairness and balance that those words be reinstated.
My amendments 299A and 299B, which seek to amend amendment 299, would also insert a few words. Amendment 299 correctly carries over some of the wording from the current section 13 of the 1991 act to ensure that the rent review provisions in the bill are workable in ways identified at stage 1 by various stakeholder groups. Again, when it has been carried over, the wording has been condensed, but the omission of certain words changes the meaning from what I believe was intended. It is correct that the court should disregard any increase in rental value that arises as a result of improvement work carried out at the tenant’s expense. However, as it is drafted, amendment 299 would result in an unfair outcome for the landlord, because the Land Court would have to disregard all the increase in rental value even when only part of the work was at the tenant’s expense.
Equally, it is accepted that the landlord would not benefit from any resulting increase in rent for grant-aided expense. The current section 13 of the 1991 act disregards that increase only in so far as the work was grant aided—which is fair—but, in the bill as it is drafted, all the value would have to be disregarded, even if only part of it benefited from grant aid. That is an inequitable outcome that I do not think could have been intended.
I move amendment 545.
