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 1733 contributions
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 June 2025
Shona Robison
As the Deputy First Minister has said, the news of the further delay and increased cost to deliver MV Glen Rosa is “unacceptable” and deeply frustrating. Our island communities rely on a resilient and reliable ferry service, and they deserve better. We have made it clear—the Deputy First Minister has made it very clear directly to Ferguson Marine—that the situation cannot continue and that strong leadership and urgent delivery are now non-negotiable. That could not be clearer.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 June 2025
Shona Robison
The Scottish Government continues to believe that delivery of local authority duties should be delegated at a local level where possible. The majority of funding provided to local government is made available through a block grant, and £8.1 million is included in that block grant in relation to land access measures and is allocated based on proportions of population and path lengths.
However, the funding is not ring fenced. It is the responsibility of individual councils to manage their budgets and allocate the total financial resources available based on local priorities, once they have met their statutory obligations.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 June 2025
Shona Robison
First, I am very happy to continue these discussions with Ariane Burgess and with others. There is a balance to be struck here. Often, in the Parliament, the demand is that local government has flexibility over its funding. That is something that COSLA called for, including in relation to some of the existing ring-fenced funds. In the Verity house agreement, the direction of travel was towards flexibility of funding and a reduction in ring-fenced funds. So, although I am happy to continue these discussions, we must make sure that we strike the right balance. I am not sure that having lots of small ring-fenced funds helps local authorities have flexibility.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 June 2025
Shona Robison
The 2025-26 budget provides local government in Scotland with record funding of more than £15.1 billion. As a result of the Scottish budget, Aberdeenshire Council received a record funding settlement worth £627.7 million to support day-to-day services. How that record funding is deployed to deliver local services, statutory duties and nationally agreed priorities is a matter for locally elected members.
I recognise that no part of the public sector is immune from difficult decisions as a result of the many years of austerity from successive United Kingdom Governments.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 June 2025
Shona Robison
Paul Sweeney has highlighted an important issue, although it is quite a difficult one, as he will be well aware. Under public procurement rules, direct awards are possible only in very strict and limited circumstances. Public procurement rules cannot just be set aside; there are rules and laws and, potentially, legal challenge governing the way in which those rules are applied. We absolutely want a bright future for Ferguson Marine. We want it to win contracts. However, that has to happen in a way that is above legal reproach.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 June 2025
Shona Robison
As I said in response to Sue Webber, the Deputy First Minister could not have been clearer that the situation is unacceptable and that strong leadership and urgent delivery are now non-negotiable. It is very important for our island communities that the vessel is delivered, but Ferguson and its leadership have to deliver the ferry within the timescale and the budget allocation that have now been agreed. The Deputy First Minister has been very clear about that point.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 June 2025
Shona Robison
The next opportunity to engage will be at the meeting of the finance interministerial standing committee, which involves all finance ministers and which will take place at the end of this month. Of course, we will highlight a number of issues that we want to see resolved and on which we want more information.
As I said in an earlier answer, the headline from today is a modest average real-terms growth rate in day-to-day spending of 0.8 per cent per year, which is lower than the average for UK departments. One concerning aspect is the continuation of the use of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 to deliver funding that should be routed through devolved Governments. That is one of the issues that I will raise with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury at the FISC meeting at the end of June.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 10 June 2025
Shona Robison
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am still having some difficulty. I would have voted no.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 10 June 2025
Shona Robison
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I could not connect. I would have voted no.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 10 June 2025
Shona Robison
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am still having technical problems. I would have voted yes.