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 2006 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Shona Robison
I do not think that there has ever been a budget that COSLA has not taken some issue with. That is its role on behalf of local government. It asked for £750 million for adult social care in a single year. That would have been more than the resource consequentials for the entire spending review. The quantum that COSLA would have liked just did not exist. However, we have given COSLA the flexibility of nearly £235 million in the general revenue grant and we have baselined hundreds of millions of pounds more in funding. It is a real-terms increase, as confirmed by commentators that include the Scottish Parliament information centre and the Accounts Commission.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Council Tax
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Shona Robison
Will the member give way?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Council Tax
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Shona Robison
Just to again help Craig Hoy a little, that reference was to the spending review, not to the 2026-27 budget. He needs to understand the difference between a budget and a spending review. Will Craig Hoy now acknowledge that the 2026-27 budget will provide a real-terms increase to local government?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Shona Robison
Kenny Gibson is right to draw attention to the fact that local authorities will be paying the price for the Labour and, indeed, Tory flawed private finance initiative and PPP deals for some years to come. I think that the scale of the costs were outlined in an answer to a written question that he received.
Kenny Gibson is also right to point to the additional costs as a result of the increase in employer national insurance contributions. The increase means that public services in Scotland face a £400 million annual shortfall, which will have an impact on local government. If Labour colleagues want to be helpful, perhaps they could lobby the UK Labour Government to give us full funding for the increase in employer national insurance contributions.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Shona Robison
If Alexander Stewart wants to propose more money for local government—I have said this to other members—he is welcome to come to my door and tell me where that money should come from, but that never happens.
The real-terms increase in the local government settlement, when we compare budget with budget, is 2 per cent. As SPICe has told members, we cannot compare the figures in the budget with those in the autumn budget revision because of the in-year movements in funds. Perhaps it is time that members started paying attention to and reading SPICe briefings. If they need any help in understanding them, my door is always open.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Shona Robison
The Scottish budget sets out a range of support that will benefit families right across Scotland. That includes continuing to invest in the provision of 1,140 hours of funded childcare, which would otherwise cost families £6,000 a year; setting out plans to go further by delivering a universal breakfast club offer for primary school-age children; and investing an additional £2.5 million each year to increase wraparound after-school clubs for families. That support is in addition to wider action to tackle the cost of living, including through investment in our warmer homes Scotland scheme, free school meals and the game-changing Scottish child payment.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Shona Robison
The Parliament has previously been unanimous in its support for the climate action that is required to be taken for Scotland, and I think that it would be disappointing if we were to remove the critical investments in peatland restoration and decarbonisation and avoid Scotland playing its part.
However, on Fergus Ewing’s point of concern about the bridge, I am very happy for communication to continue with Highland Council. I think that there has been communication with the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, but I will check that, and I will make sure that Fergus Ewing gets a response on the current status of those communications.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Council Tax
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Shona Robison
Will the member give way?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Council Tax
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Shona Robison
Mr Stewart is contradicting himself.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Shona Robison
Councillor Ricky Bell and COSLA have a job to do on behalf of local government, and I totally respect that. However, independent commentators, including the Scottish Parliament information centre, which informs MSPs in this Parliament—whether they heed its advice is another matter—confirm that there is a real-terms increase in funding to local government.
As recently as 16 January, SPICe confirmed that the past three Scottish budgets all included real-terms increases for the local government revenue settlement; the Accounts Commission has also confirmed that. If Neil Bibby believes that there should be more money for local government, he can propose that on behalf of his party in the stages of the budget bill—but he will then, of course, have to say where that money has to come from. If he wants to come and see me and propose where that money should come from, my door is always open.
