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 4204 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 8 May 2025
John Swinney
They have absolutely nothing constructive to contribute to the debate. Let me say to Mr Findlay that, during my term in office as First Minister, we promised to provide 64,000 extra appointments by the end of March 2025. We did not do that. In fact, we delivered 105,500 extra appointments and procedures in that timescale, and we will deliver more in the forthcoming parliamentary year. I say to Mr Findlay—just so that he is not worried about it in the future—that this Government will deliver more in the course of the next 12 months. I will be very happy to answer parliamentary questions about that—not just before the election but after it, when I will remain as First Minister.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 8 May 2025
John Swinney
I welcome the contribution that Karen Adam makes on these issues. It is important to highlight the importance of deaf awareness week to increasing understanding of deaf culture and language. The Deputy First Minister met members of the community last week. The “British Sign Language National Plan 2023-2029” represents our on-going commitment to making Scotland the best place in the world for BSL users to live, work, visit and learn.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 8 May 2025
John Swinney
I am simply being straight with the Parliament about—[Interruption.]
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 8 May 2025
John Swinney
That is at the very heart of the direct award; there is an objective of doing exactly that. One of the key obligations in the contract is the necessity of engaging with communities. There is a more significant role in the direct award for the ferries community board, which is able to articulate many of the issues that Mr Greene has put to me. The contract is structured to ensure that community voice and community aspiration are right at the heart of the delivery of ferry services. That will be a contractual obligation of CalMac.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Programme for Government
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
John Swinney
I happily give that commitment to Emma Roddick. I know that the past few weeks have been particularly challenging for members of the LGBTQ+ community. I recognise that, and I want to assure Emma Roddick of the Government’s commitment to address the concerns that have been expressed. I have set out in my statement the rationale for the steps that we are taking on ending conversion practices by collaborating with the UK Government, which has indicated that it intends to take forward the agenda, and by ensuring that we provide funding support to organisations that will work to promote equality in Scotland in the forthcoming financial year. I give Emma Roddick the assurance that those commitments will lie at the heart of the programme for government.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Programme for Government
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
John Swinney
Mr Kerr will be familiar with the fact that the Government has to live within the resources that are available to it. We have had to deal with the significant pressure in the past two financial years of hyperinflation arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has fuelled public sector pay deals to levels that were not conceived of when we were setting the Government’s budget. Therefore, we have had to make changes. What the Government has done is put forward a budget that has now been supported by the Parliament—although not by Mr Kerr or the Conservatives, so I do not quite know why he is complaining about anything financial to me. He was not willing to press the button to vote for the Government’s budget; he was just prepared to sit over there, complain, not suggest any alternatives and fail to support the delivery of finances to support our public services. That is a capitulation with regard to the responsibilities of a member of Parliament.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Programme for Government
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
John Swinney
The steps that we are putting in place on peak rail fares, the support to the bus sector and the active travel work that is under way in the Government are three examples that I would cite to Mr Adam as measures that support the modal shift that is required to support our climate ambitions.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Programme for Government
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
John Swinney
No, I will not. Subject choice is very extensive in Scottish education, and Pam Duncan-Glancy does a disservice to the education system to suggest otherwise.
On attainment—[Interruption.]
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Programme for Government
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
John Swinney
Audrey Nicoll highlights an important issue around economic volatility. Part of what the Government is trying to do in the programme for government is to make clear where we can take steps to support companies in navigating those examples of global volatility. We have a number of key markets, which are represented by the areas in which we have an international presence through Scottish Development International. We also have the benefit of the GlobalScot network, which helps us to establish connections. Technology, life sciences, renewables and green hydrogen, premium food and drink, and advanced manufacturing are some of the key sectors that the Government will pursue.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Programme for Government
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
John Swinney
I will respond to the various issues that Mr Sarwar raised. On the health service, there were increases in in-patient and day-case activity over the 12 months up to December 2024. In my statement, I cited the various improvements that have been made in the performance of the national health service, which have been based on the new funding that the Government has made available. That funding will be more significant in the coming financial year. We are helping the national health service to recover from the impact of the Covid pandemic and delays in treatment. Mr Sarwar managed to breeze his way through that whole question without mentioning the impact of the global pandemic and the disruption that it caused to our healthcare services.
On schools, much higher levels of literacy and numeracy have been recorded in our schools, and the attainment gap is at its narrowest in a number of the key aspects of literacy and numeracy assessments that are made.
On housing, we have delivered more affordable housing per head of population in Scotland by a significant margin compared with developments in England, and by a very significant margin compared with the situation in Wales. I was interested to see that, today, my counterpart in Wales, Eluned Morgan, the First Minister of Wales, has set out her vigorous disagreement with the direction of the United Kingdom Labour Government that was elected the last time that people were faced with a choice of Government.
Of course, we have heard none of that from Mr Sarwar, who has been right behind the UK Government on making welfare cuts that affect the poorest people in our country, right behind it on taking no action for the women against state pension inequality and right behind it on cutting winter fuel payments for pensioners in our country. I think that the people of Scotland will be able to see the contrast between an SNP Scottish Government that is delivering for them and a Labour United Kingdom Government that is selling out the poor and disadvantaged in our country and penalising pensioners. I think that they will choose the SNP.
