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 3346 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
“Alcohol and drug services”
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Graham Simpson
There are a couple of other areas that I want to ask about quickly. You have already mentioned minimum unit pricing. In your letter to the Auditor General, you repeatedly called the policy “world-leading”, saying that it
“has saved hundreds of lives”.
What is the evidence for that?
Public Audit Committee
“Alcohol and drug services”
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Graham Simpson
But how were you able to link the two? How was that possible?
Public Audit Committee
“Alcohol and drug services”
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Graham Simpson
How far do you think it should go? Should we just keep increasing the price of drink in Scotland, year on year?
Public Audit Committee
“Alcohol and drug services”
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Graham Simpson
Yes, a very brief question, convener.
Caroline, in your letter, you list a number of stakeholders that you are liaising with, such as the Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems, Alcohol Focus Scotland and the Scottish Alcohol Counselling Consortium. It struck me that nobody on that list is actually involved in the drinks sector—the Scottish Beer and Pubs Association would be just one example. Do you also take advice from people who are involved in serving the public?
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Graham Simpson
To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to address wait times in temporary accommodation. (S6O-04147)
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Graham Simpson
I am sure that the minister will agree that some of the waiting times in temporary accommodation have been absolutely appalling. There was one case in South Lanarkshire in which a child spent 420 days in temporary accommodation, and an adult who endured a 760-day stay. That is unacceptable. Given that the First Minister said earlier, “We are not building enough houses”, does the minister agree that we need a better approach and that it should be targeted at those areas that are most in need?
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 17 December 2024
Graham Simpson
The minister has been very clear on that. He gave a statement last week and set out his timetable, and I am sure that he will repeat that when he makes his contribution in this debate. I am not speaking for the minister—he can do that himself—but his intention is that the provisions will be in place for MPs and peers by the time of the 2026 election. I hope that that reassures my friend Mr Kerr.
The furore over said MP’s ambitions forced him to back down, and if all that has helped Audrey Nicoll, who is a lovely lady, I am delighted about that. I will not name the MP—he would probably like me to—but we all know who it is. My amendments are not about him or anyone else, but he has helped to shine a light on double jobbing, so he has done us a favour in a way, although it might not have felt that way to some.
I want to give some context to the debate on this group of amendments, so let me turn to what has gone before. I have said that Scotland is an outlier in not banning dual mandates. Let us first have a look at Northern Ireland. Dual mandates in the House of Commons and the Northern Ireland Assembly are prohibited by the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014—a United Kingdom Parliament act—which provides that an MP who is elected as an MLA has eight days to resign from the House of Commons and that an MLA who is elected as an MP must resign immediately from the Northern Ireland Assembly. The act also explicitly prevents members of the legislative Assembly from becoming members of Parliament in Dublin.
The Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 2014 prohibits councillors from being members of the Assembly, the House of Commons or the House of Lords or from being elected to any other legislature.
The banning of dual mandates in Northern Ireland followed increasing criticism of the practice in the aftermath of the 2009 MPs’ expenses scandal. That year, Sir Christopher Kelly published a report on MPs’ expenses and allowances, which recommended that the practice of holding dual mandates in the House of Commons and the devolved Parliaments should be brought to an end as soon as possible.
The Kelly report found that so-called double jobbing was most prevalent in Northern Ireland, where, in 2009, 16 out of the 18 Westminster MPs also sat in Stormont, and five of them were ministers. The report found that double jobbing was “unusually ingrained” there.
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 17 December 2024
Graham Simpson
Mr Johnson makes a reasonable point. Perhaps that was an oversight on my part, but, for me, the main issue is people who want to sit in this Parliament while being an MP or in the House of Lords. The question of councillors is another matter, which I will come on to.
The Kelly report said:
“the Committee questions whether it is possible to sit in two ... legislatures simultaneously and do justice to both roles”.
David Cameron pledged to end dual mandates for Northern Ireland in the 2010 Conservative Party manifesto. That was framed as part of a broader objective to make devolution work and
“bring Northern Ireland back into the mainstream of UK politics.”
In Wales, dual mandates were banned under the Wales Act 2014, which ruled that any MP who is elected to the Senedd has eight days to resign from the House of Commons and that an AM who is elected as an MP must resign immediately from the Assembly. The Secretary of State for Wales justified the changes as a response to the increased workload of AMs following the devolution of powers in 2011. In a debate about Welsh Assembly elections in the House of Lords in June 2012, Baroness Morgan of Ely argued:
“it is difficult to serve two political institutions at the same time.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 June 2012; Vol 737, c 131.]
I agree.
The Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act 2020 disqualified members of the House of Lords, Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly or local authorities in Wales from being members of the Senedd, which is possibly the point that Mr Johnson was making.
Wales and Northern Ireland have legislation to prohibit double jobbing, but we do not have it here. Somehow, Scotland has escaped. It does not make sense.
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 17 December 2024
Graham Simpson
I will press my amendment, and I wind up simply by thanking everyone who has taken part in what has been a very good debate. That includes my good friend Keith Brown, who made a very interesting point. I respectfully disagree with it, but it is right that he made it. That kind of issue can be looked at when we do the consultation.
I urge the minister to be as collegiate as he has been so far when he looks at the regulations. I am sure that that will be the case, and with that, I will sit down.
Amendment 34 agreed to.
Amendments 35 and 36 moved—[Graham Simpson]—and agreed to.
After section 2B
Amendments 3 and 37 not moved.
Section 3—Scottish disqualification orders
Amendment 5 moved—[Ross Greer]—and agreed to.
After section 11
Amendment 6 moved—[Ross Greer]—and agreed to.
After section 13
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 17 December 2024
Graham Simpson
I encourage Mr Brown to read the amendments. They leave the details to regulations, and the minister will consult on those. It is not my intention to prevent anyone from standing for this place—I would never do that. If somebody wants to stand, let them stand and let them be elected. The details would be left to the regulations, which is clear in the amendments, as Mr Brown would see if he read them—I am sure that he has them in front of him while I am speaking.
