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 4236 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 23 January 2025
John Swinney
In his answer to Neil Bibby and in his original parliamentary statement, there was no issue about the language used by Neil Gray. In one answer, Neil Gray used one word that he should not have used—the word “all”—[Interruption.]
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 23 January 2025
John Swinney
Although the performance of A and E units is not where we want it to be, performance on the four-hour target has risen in each week since the week ending 22 December as a result of the hard work of the staff in the health service. Jackie Baillie should stop running down the staff of the national health service. For her information, I note that more than 1 million patients in Scotland have been treated within the four-hour target during the past year, and that is because our staff deliver on our behalf. We are very proud of them, into the bargain. [Interruption.]
Meeting of the Parliament
Red Weather Warning
Meeting date: 23 January 2025
John Swinney
I am grateful to the Presiding Officer for the opportunity to make my remarks to the Parliament before First Minister’s question time.
This morning, the Met Office issued a very rare red weather warning for storm Éowyn tomorrow. The warning covers parts of Dumfries and Galloway and of the Scottish Borders, all of Strathclyde and Lothian and Borders, the Forth Valley and southern parts of Fife. The red weather warning is expected to begin at 10 am tomorrow and to last until 5 pm tomorrow, while a wider amber warning for high winds across the whole country and a yellow warning for snow in some parts of Scotland still remain in place. The storm could bring winds of up to 100 mph.
The Met Office’s advice is clear that the potential impacts include danger to life, structural damage to property, and transport and power disruptions. We have to be clear that people should not travel, and Police Scotland will issue a formal do not travel advisory notice shortly. Councils will make decisions today about school closures.
The Government is ready to respond. Our resilience and emergency system—the Scottish Government resilience room or SGORR—was activated this morning to co-ordinate help and to support Scotland’s front-line responders, including the police, fire services and the ambulance service. I will chair a meeting of the resilience room shortly after First Minister’s questions, and further advice will be issued to the public.
Red weather warnings such as this are very rare. Our message is simple: please follow the advice from the Met Office and the police, take this seriously, and stay safe.
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 23 January 2025
John Swinney
I am going to explain the fact that Jackie Baillie is sharing incorrect information with the Parliament. If Jackie Baillie—[Interruption.]
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 23 January 2025
John Swinney
No amount of shouting at me by Labour members will distract me from pointing out to the public the damage that will be done because of that increase.
What do we find out? We find out that Anas Sarwar is completely and utterly hopeless and powerless in the face of a UK Government that has taken a decision that will damage Scotland’s health and social care system. The people of Scotland know that this Government will protect the interests of Scotland when Anas Sarwar sells them out.
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 23 January 2025
John Swinney
I understand the logic of the point that Lorna Slater makes. We want to make sure that public transport is affordable for individuals. In the period in which we worked with the Scottish Green Party in government, we took the step of introducing the concessionary travel scheme for under-22s, which has been a huge benefit. That scheme benefits many of my constituents, and it will benefit many of Lorna Slater’s constituents.
The aspiration of delivering public transport that is as low cost as possible is an aspiration that the Government shares. I am aware of the proposals that have been advanced by the Scottish Green Party, and I give Lorna Slater an assurance that they will be considered seriously by the Scottish Government.
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 23 January 2025
John Swinney
If Murdo Fraser will forgive me, I will just be accountable for my conduct and contribution. People can be assured that this First Minister will be focused on the issues that matter to the people of Scotland. We have talked about the national health service already in this session. The issue of the NHS matters to me, and the Scottish economy and its prospects, including those of the Scotch whisky industry, all matter to me, into the bargain. I will take forward my responsibilities to make sure that Scotland’s economic interests are protected. Should that come from engagement and dialogue with the President of the United States, notwithstanding people’s views about the President, I will do exactly that, because it is my duty as First Minister to do so.
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 23 January 2025
John Swinney
That is a significant issue. The point that I would make is contrary to what Mr Balfour has put on the record. If I heard him correctly, he mentioned the closure of the BNY Mellon site. However, that is not what BNY Mellon said this morning, which was that it is
“currently evaluating the scale of our operations at our Capital House site in Edinburgh”.
It is really important that members of Parliament do not cause unnecessary alarm among members of the public who are employed by companies. If I misheard Mr Balfour, I will apologise, but I do not think that I did.
We engage constructively with BNY Mellon, which is a great investor in Scotland: it is one of a huge number of financial services companies that employ thousands of people here. Yesterday, the Deputy First Minister and I, along with a number of ministers, visited the new headquarters of JPMorganChase, which employs more than 2,500 staff at a magnificent state-of-the-art campus that it has opened in the centre of Glasgow.
We should have a lot of pride in the strength of our financial services sector. The Scottish Government will always engage constructively with any company that is examining the footprint of its operations in Scotland.
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 23 January 2025
John Swinney
I regret that decision. Obviously, the Government will use its agencies to support any individual who is affected. We will also engage with the company to see whether there is any way in which we can ensure continuation of production in the Dumfries and Galloway area, given the importance of authenticity in the source of production of important products of that type.
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 23 January 2025
John Swinney
The issue will not be with CalMac, because it will have to follow the regulatory regime that is put in place by the animal health regulator. If that situation has transpired, I welcome it. I am very familiar with the strength of the agricultural community in our islands. Indeed, on Monday, Mr Fairlie and I were involved in discussions with the agricultural community in the highland Perthshire area, and representatives from Orkney travelled down to take part in one of the other round-table discussions that I was involved in this week.
I want to make sure that we can support our island agricultural communities. I will explore whether we need to make any further advice available but, if the situation that Mr Eagle has put to me has arisen, I am pleased to welcome that.
