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 385 contributions
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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 1 April 2025
Jamie Hepburn
I have made the point that there are some complexities involved relating to interactions with other subordinate legislation and the other demands on those who are involved in the process across a range of other activities. That is the challenge that we face.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 1 April 2025
Jamie Hepburn
There is a commitment to refer one in each parliamentary year, so yes. We will make it clear in due course what that might be, but, essentially, we intend to meet the agreement that we have with the committee.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 1 April 2025
Jamie Hepburn
Certainly—just let me get to the right part of my briefing papers.
Inevitably, some LCMs will come to the Scottish Parliament arising out of the UK Government’s programme. As to what those might be, that is something that we would flag in the usual fashion.
We have given some indication of legislation that we anticipate might require an LCM in due course, including the proposed railways bill, the Artificial Intelligence (Regulation) Bill, the Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill—a private member’s bill, which I am involved in responding to on our side—the Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill and various other bills. Any LCMs that might be lodged in connection with those bills would be dealt with in the usual way, and we would certainly let the committee know as quickly as possible if any were to trigger the specific interests of this committee. That said, looking down the list, I cannot see any that would require the specific, detailed consideration of this committee; I think that they would all be more for subject committees to consider.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 1 April 2025
Jamie Hepburn
Again, that is a matter of on-going discussion with the UK Government. I understand that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has written to your committee on the issue, and both Administrations are aware of the Scottish Parliament’s desire to have a scrutiny role with regard to those matters. I am also desirous of that, where that is sensible and proportionate to do so. I have made a commitment that we will continue to press that case with the UK Government. I have already made the point that I am looking to meet my counterpart in the Scotland Office, Kirsty McNeill, and I will make that point to her as well.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 1 April 2025
Jamie Hepburn
Of course.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 1 April 2025
Jamie Hepburn
I recognise that that is taking too long; I will not suggest otherwise. Work is on-going on a proposed section 93 order under the Scotland Act 1998 that will correct the error in the 2019 order. One of the challenges that we face, which has raised some complications, is that there is another proposed instrument in play that is interlinked, so that needs to be worked through. That involves us having to interact with the UK Government, which inevitably adds a layer of complexity. I am not trying to suggest that there is fault at either end, but that is an inevitable part of the complexity of the process.
I am looking to meet with my counterpart in the UK Government’s Scotland Office, Kirsty McNeill, in due course. This issue is one of the specific things that I want to discuss to try to make sure that we make some substantial progress so that, the next time that I am before the committee, I hope that I will be able to report that we have achieved such.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 1 April 2025
Jamie Hepburn
I will come back to the committee on that as soon as possible. I need to engage with the UK Government to be able to give a more definitive answer.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 1 April 2025
Jamie Hepburn
There is on-going engagement between officials in the Scottish Government and those in the UK Government to try to resolve the issue.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 1 April 2025
Jamie Hepburn
We continue to work our way through the various historical commitments that we have made. For example, we are due to lay instruments relating to police, teacher and firefighter pensions on 24 April.
The regulations that relate to the national health service pension schemes will become part of a wider amending instrument that is required to bring NHS remediable service regulations up to date. That instrument is anticipated to be laid before the summer recess.
We also intend to lay regulations relating to the Valuation (Proposals Procedure) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024 (SSI 2024/186) before the summer recess, which will seek to remedy the point that the committee raised.
An amendment will be made to the Burial (Applications and Register) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 (22I 2024/334) at the same time as the next set of burial regulations are made under the terms of the primary legislation, the Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016. We will keep the Parliament updated on the timings.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Minister for Parliamentary Business
Meeting date: 1 April 2025
Jamie Hepburn
I welcome the report. I have looked over it, but I had better keep my powder dry as to what I might say about it until we have sent the full response, which we will do in due course. Some of the findings will probably tally with what I laid out in the evidence that I gave when I came to speak to the inquiry. Obviously, the bureau is still to determine when a business motion will go before the Parliament and I should not get ahead of that too much, but I hope that it has been communicated to the committee that we have identified a date on which we hope to be able to debate the committee’s report. That will be later this month, just after recess. I hope that the Parliament will agree to that so that we can debate the report in fuller detail.
