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 870 contributions
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Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Patrick Harvie
I will follow up on some of the points regarding the national performance companies that were raised already. I do not think that there is any need for defensiveness on the issue. I think that everybody who is taking it seriously recognises that the £100 million was never going to be delivered in a single tranche and that, even for a portfolio with a rising budget, the demands rise every bit as quickly such that there are more ways in which that budget could be used than the money that is available. There will always to be pressures, even with a rising budget.
To me, the big issue is the lack of clarity about the trajectory for the future. I would love to see a funding increase for the companies in the current year, but, even if that is not possible, my understanding is that greater clarity about what is coming in the years ahead will help to avoid them being forced into some very damaging decisions. I put that argument to you in the chamber when I asked whether you would
“offer some concrete clarity about the funding trajectory”
and you said:
“I can give Mr Harvie that assurance. Those conversations have already been had with the national performing companies … I agree that they would wish to have as much clarity about that as possible, and that is what I want to give them.”—[Official Report, 28 January 2026; c 12.]
Last week, we heard recognition of that discussion from Steven Roth when he said:
“I am glad that”
Mr Harvie
“received that assurance from the cabinet secretary, because it gives us a bit of assurance, too.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe and External Affairs Committee, 29 January 2026; c 38.]
Therefore, I ask you specifically what assurance have you been able to give to the NPCs about what they will receive in the coming years? If the current Government is returned and continues with the funding trajectory that is set out in the spending review, what level of increase can they expect? How can they build that into their financial plans for the year ahead?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Patrick Harvie
I am sure that you will keep the committee updated on the results of that work or on the progress in making something like that happen.
Finally, I want to ask for an assurance that, at your meeting with the board to discuss the situation, you will raise the possibility of the staff who have just lost their jobs being directly involved in the discussion and of your being able to contact them to at least explore the possibility that they could have a role in whatever comes next.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Patrick Harvie
Thank you.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Patrick Harvie
Are you confident that that process will enable them to avoid making immediate changes of the kind that we have been warned about, such as moving to a freelance model instead of a salaried model?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Patrick Harvie
Thank you. I am sure that you will want to keep the committee updated as those conversations progress.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Patrick Harvie
I have one final question—I will try to make it brief. It is on the external affairs part of your portfolio.
The committee is obviously not unanimous on the Scottish Government’s external affairs engagement; there are those who seem to question whether it should happen at all. However, I think that there is a clear majority in Parliament for the backing of a strong and assertive approach to external affairs by the Scottish Government.
I would like to understand what is going on with the budget, not just in 2026-27 but in the spending review as well. It is going up from the £26.7 million that was budgeted for—it is slightly lower in the outturn—to £34.5 million in the budget for 2026-27. However, the spending review shows a decline for each of the subsequent two years. The spending review is a bit of a first draft—it is not a fixed, committed budget, and it might change over the next couple of years. However, can you give us an understanding of why there is an increase in one year, followed by a couple of decreases?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Patrick Harvie
That would be appreciated. We are in a changing world, and Scotland faces changing pressures, opportunities and threats. It is clear that, in future years, the Scottish Government should retain a strong commitment not only to things such as international development aid but to ensuring that Scotland’s voice is heard on the world stage.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Patrick Harvie
Thank you, convener.
Good morning. You will appreciate that, as a member of the committee who is a Glasgow MSP, I want to pursue the same issue. We are looking at the budget for 2026-27, which allocates nearly £1.3 million for the CCA. You are the landlord—the owner of the building—and you have money allocated to support the building. It seems to me that, notwithstanding the failure of the CCA as an organisation, you are in a very strong position to move forward and to ensure that the facility—the building—can be brought back to life in some form or other as rapidly as possible. I would be really concerned if a post-mortem on the CCA as an organisation ended up delaying progress on bringing the building back into use in some capacity.
It seems to me that the best thing that we could do quickly is to reach out to the staff who have lost their jobs and gauge their capacity and their interest in establishing a new worker-led organisation that would retain the skills and experience of that group of people. That would be the fastest way to bring the CCA back to life, or to bring its successor to life, to the benefit of the cultural life of our city. Have you explored that? Would the budget that is allocated for 2026-27 enable a rapid pathway to that?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Patrick Harvie
As I understand it, you have, in effect, provided the building to the organisation at a peppercorn rent, as well as providing funding. Would that still be part of the offer that would be available to a successor organisation?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 5 February 2026
Patrick Harvie
Good morning. I want to ask about three separate issues, so I will try to be quite tight on each one. We have just had Creative Scotland with us, and I and another member asked about the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow. You will obviously be very aware—in fact, according to press reports, you were aware some days before the news broke—that the CCA has gone into liquidation.
I put it to Iain Munro that, although there will obviously be questions about the CCA as an organisation and how things got to where they are, that must not be a barrier to bringing the building back into use as a cultural facility for Glasgow and giving it a new lease of life. Mr Munro seemed to agree with that. I would argue that parachuting in management consultants and the like has not been very successful, and that an organisation that is rooted in the cultural and artistic community and its values is far more likely to navigate some of the pressures, including some of the external tensions that have been problematic in recent times for the CCA.
I asked Mr Munro whether he would explore with the board the option of a worker-led approach that involves reaching out to staff who have just lost their jobs and exploring their interest and capacity in taking something forward and being directly involved in a new organisation that would bring the building back to life. As Creative Scotland is both the funder and the landlord, it is in a very strong position to help to make that happen. I ask for your support in at least exploring the option of a more worker-led future for the CCA to consider whether that would be more successful in navigating some of the pressures that have been problematic in recent years.
