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 662 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 October 2025
Sarah Boyack
It is useful to hear how things have actually changed, where the strengths are and where things are still challenging for public sector bodies.
Professor Reid, I want to ask about the guidance for public sector bodies in Scotland, in terms of both the pressures that they are under and the possibility that the bill’s requirement to take action according to the wellbeing and sustainable development principles could legitimise action in organisations where the issues might not otherwise be seen as taking centre stage, as Professor Jones said. Can you talk about that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 October 2025
Sarah Boyack
I was thinking about the guidance and the fact that there could be an investigation. It seems that, in Wales, that approach has raised the bar for public authorities. If we did that here, would that help to address the sustainable development principles—which, as you said, have been identified 35 times in legislation over the past 20-odd years—and raise the wellbeing issue up the agenda?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 October 2025
Sarah Boyack
I appreciate that you are short of time, convener, so I will stop at that point.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 October 2025
Sarah Boyack
So, just having it as a requirement on paper is not enough. That is why I asked about the experience in Wales of having the commissioner follow up such reports and ask questions, which means that there is not just guidance but, importantly, a potential investigation, which could affect a body’s reputation. To what extent do you think that public bodies would take proactive action to avoid reputational damage and engage in the sort of collaboration that we have seen in Wales if we had similar provisions in place here?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 October 2025
Sarah Boyack
I want to ask—
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 October 2025
Sarah Boyack
Apologies, convener. This was going to be my last question anyway. I will try to keep it sharp.
Earlier, there was a reference to the Carnegie UK report about alternative ways of doing things in relation to future generations, parliamentary committees and so on. Do you have any thoughts about what could be done in that regard if we did not have a body with potential investigatory powers and the ability to provide guidance? We have the national performance framework, but, without that focus, how would a future generations commissioner be able to apply pressure and support public sector bodies? How could the elements of the bill involving the definition and the requirement to have regard to wellbeing and sustainable development be implemented?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 October 2025
Sarah Boyack
That is very much appreciated. It has been good to listen to committee colleagues’ questions.
I will kick off, Professor Jones, by asking you about a couple of your earlier answers on the extent to which public bodies have improved their actions in relation to these issues since the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales was established. You referenced modest change and the maturity of public bodies over the past decade. Will you give us some practical examples to evidence what you meant by that? Is it preventative spending? Is it policy direction? Will you give us some examples, just to bring it to life?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 October 2025
Sarah Boyack
That is really useful. The 2015 act has changed the landscape.
I have a question about the fact that all public sector bodies are under pressure but do not have unlimited funding, which makes that collaborative approach important. Have you seen a difference in the decisions made by public sector bodies because of preventative spending or longer-term thinking ? Has the act legitimised that kind of approach?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 September 2025
Sarah Boyack
I will ask some questions about liability and how it is defined in the bill. The bill proposes thresholds of “intent or recklessness” for individuals and “consent or connivance” for responsible individuals in an organisation. Some of the substantial amount of written evidence that we have received suggests that those are very high thresholds for accountability, and that the thresholds should also include negligence. It has also been suggested that there should be strict liability for individuals or organisations, or the penalisation of neglect on the part of responsible individuals, as is the case in other environmental legislation.
I am keen to get views from witnesses on how the bill is drafted. Do you support the approach to liability?
Dr Fifield, you are nodding your head. Is that deliberate? Are you happy with the bill as currently drafted?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 September 2025
Sarah Boyack
As none of the other witnesses wants to come in on that, I will move to the next question, which is about how vicarious liability for the acts of employees or agents is separate from acts of directors and so on who are at fault. Jamie Whittle mentioned the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2011. How does that relate to what is in the bill? Are you happy with how it is all set out?
