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 1171 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Michael Matheson
That would be helpful; thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Michael Matheson
Sticking with energy from waste, the draft plan assumes that those emissions will peak this year. From what I can see in the plan, that appears to be based on some underlying assumptions, including that the landfill ban would have already come into force and that no new sites will come online. What levers do you have to ensure that energy-from-waste emissions will not increase this year?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Michael Matheson
So, those places are full and cannot take the materials, even if they wanted to enter a contract with a business.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Michael Matheson
What was the rationale behind ending funding for Wave Energy Scotland?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Michael Matheson
WES has told us that, given that the funding ends next month, it has to start giving people statutory notice. I am not sure what the timescale is for the conclusion of the discussions with Wave Energy Scotland, but it would appear that, if that is not resolved in the very near future, it will be lost. Cabinet secretary, are you saying that funding in the next financial year is contingent on having a business case and a business plan that satisfy you?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Michael Matheson
Good morning. In some of the evidence that we have received, witnesses have highlighted that the headline figures on emissions, costs, benefits and so on in the draft plan do not give sufficient detail. Can you explain how the Government arrived at those figures? Did you use disaggregated figures to arrive at what appears to be an average in your emissions figures?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Michael Matheson
It is encouraging to hear that there has been a lot of cross-directorate working in drawing together the data and in modelling how that will look in different areas.
In evidence, witnesses have raised concerns about the presentation of information in the draft plan. I will give you a flavour of that. Lloyd Austin from Stop Climate Chaos Scotland said:
“the draft plan unfortunately lacks the details and the transparency that will allow us to reach any conclusion. We cannot tell how the modelling has been done, how the analysis has led to the predicted emissions reductions and so on.”
Dr Mark Winskel from the University of Edinburgh and the UK Energy Research Centre said:
“I share many of the concerns about the way in which the plan has been presented and the fact that the evidence trail is not really there when it comes to the connection between the analysis, the policy costs, the overall policy package and the effort across different sectors.”—[Official Report, Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, 16 December 2025; c 13, 11.]
Those are direct quotes from a couple of our witnesses. Given that you have clearly used disaggregated data to support the modelling that you have undertaken to come to the emission figures in the plan, will you publish the details of that modelling in order to provide the transparency that some witnesses have said is lacking?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Michael Matheson
It certainly adds if you can see the workings. I must confess, I find that argument quite bizarre—nobody else does it, so we are not doing it. It is not a case of, “Well, we don’t do it”; it is a case of whether you should do it. That is the point, so I find that quite a bizarre approach.
Let me move on—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Michael Matheson
I have to say that I do not think that many members of the public will read the draft climate change plan at all, never mind the actual data.
The cabinet secretary provided a good illustration when she mentioned health. A modelling process will have been used to arrive at the health statistics, as will disaggregated data, and that is the sort of data that is being asked for with regard to how you have arrived at some of the headline figures in the draft climate change plan. That is what we are looking for—the disaggregated data and the modelling used to give substance to those figures.
Another point that has been raised with the committee is the level of detail in the draft plan. Some of the sectoral emission levels have been set out in the plan on a policy basis, under headings such as “Business and Industrial Process”, and then there are other areas, such as buildings, where there is a higher level of reporting. What is the thinking behind having broader areas such as business and industry rather than areas that are more contained, such as buildings? How do you intend to create the right type of oversight on those different levels of policy?
10:15
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Michael Matheson
Okay. That makes sense. You will want to take specific aspects into account for stuff to do with housing within a Scottish dynamic.
That brings me to the question of oversight of the figures for the targets. Do you have a similar oversight mechanism to see what progress has been made in meeting the emissions reduction levels in the different sectors? You will be using a slightly different analytical approach to arrive at the figures for them. What is the oversight mechanism to ensure that those sectors are making progress? Is that different, given the different nature of the analytical process that you have used?
