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 2546 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Two-child Cap
Meeting date: 15 January 2026
Bob Doris
With the convener’s permission, Mr Dickie.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Two-child Cap
Meeting date: 15 January 2026
Bob Doris
I have a follow-up question, and I will bring in other witnesses. The UK Government would have had to be absolutely myopic and have its fingers in its ears not to get the clamour to abolish the two-child limit, so I commend, as Marie McNair did, the work of the stakeholders of civic Scotland and the rest of the UK on that. However, I am keen to know whether there are other policy areas in which engagement resulted in a bit of movement—or whether it is still a wee bit stuck and movement has not really happened. Our committee is trying to give added value on some of that. Can you give an example beyond the removal of the two-child limit—which, obviously, we welcome?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Two-child Cap
Meeting date: 15 January 2026
Bob Doris
That is what my last question will be about, if there is time for it. Professor Sinclair, I do not know whether the two-child cap is an obvious example, but, based on what John Dickie said, the bandwidth and the effort that that took, for such a long period of time, might have crowded out other discussions that you were all keen to see take place. Did other discussions take place? How would you describe your engagement? Can you give some examples?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Two-child Cap
Meeting date: 15 January 2026
Bob Doris
Thank you, Mr Dickie—I am sorry to cut across you; it is just that I am aware of the time. Are there any additional comments on how that money could be used?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Two-child Cap
Meeting date: 15 January 2026
Bob Doris
That is very helpful, Mr Dickie, and a really interesting way of looking at the issue. On a slight tangent, that joint working happens quite a lot in net zero ambitions, for example, where discussions take place between Governments and, sometimes, sectoral organisations, and then a commitment is almost co-produced and announced. We perhaps do not get to see that in the field of social security and social justice. Professor Sinclair, do you have any final words?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Two-child Cap
Meeting date: 15 January 2026
Bob Doris
No further questions from me, convener.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Local Housing Allowance
Meeting date: 8 January 2026
Bob Doris
That is very helpful, because you have covered the final question that I wanted to ask. Are you able to quantify what you spend above your allocation? For example, I see that Glasgow’s DHP spend is £1.33 million. That is a heads-up for Duncan Black—I will come to him in a second. Do you have the detail on what Fife spends above its allocation? If you do not, you can send it to the committee, because it would be helpful to know that.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Local Housing Allowance
Meeting date: 8 January 2026
Bob Doris
Please do so, and perhaps you could also send the detail of what you said there, because you were on mute for a second.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Local Housing Allowance
Meeting date: 8 January 2026
Bob Doris
I will stick with Hannah Aldridge for the moment. If I have this right, the previous UK Conservative Government relinked to the 30th percentile in April 2024 but it used a baseline from a wee bittie before that, so it is linked to market values from before April 2024. The current UK Labour Government has said that, at least until April 2026, LHA will remain frozen.
I am looking at a Resolution Foundation report from October last year that suggests that any gain from the action in April 2024 may already have been lost. The report—and I apologise, convener, if these are UK figures rather than Scottish figures—suggests that, by this year, the affordability gap could be at record levels and that, by 2029-30, it could be at 25 per cent. Can I check first of all that the affordability gap for low-income families and individuals in the private rented sector is continuing to widen? Are the statistics that I have used for the UK or for Scotland? What is the Scottish perspective on that, Hannah?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Local Housing Allowance
Meeting date: 8 January 2026
Bob Doris
That is interesting. Without putting words in your mouth, Hannah, I think that you are saying that the affordability gap is still increasing in Scotland, but at a lower rate compared with other parts of the UK. I see you nodding your head—I did not want to assign that paraphrase to you, if it was not accurate.
Ashley Campbell and Maeve McGoldrick, do you have any comments on a growing affordability gap at a Scottish level? Do you have any data in that respect that you could put on the record this morning? If not, that is okay.
