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 1294 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Liz Smith
The “Scottish Government Guide to the Autumn Budget Revision” makes it clear that there is no change in the overall funding situation—that is fine. However, somebody in Perth or Dunfermline might want to know when the reprofiling will happen. Are you able to give us any guidance on that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Liz Smith
Right. I do not think that I have seen that information, and nor have some of my colleagues. If you could provide it, that would be very helpful.
Am I right in thinking that the separate £6 million that the guide highlights relates to very specific projects within some of the deals? Is that correct? I am looking at paragraph 59 of the Scottish Government’s guide, which says that there are
“Separately £6 million of project specific City Deal transfers”.
I presume that, if we take away the £6 million from the £43.7 million, we get the £37.7 million. Is that correct?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Liz Smith
I will finish with a specific question and a suggestion. I have asked this question of you before, and of Shirley-Anne Somerville, in the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. There have been significant increases in adult disability payments and child disability payments. I have been trying to drill down into why that is. It seems that the Scottish Government’s argument is that the case load is considerably greater in Scotland than it is in other parts of the UK. Are you comfortable with that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Liz Smith
Forgive me, but the Scottish Government has already made its choices. Michael Marra asked you when we would get an options paper. The key point here, which I have already questioned you and Shirley-Anne Somerville on in the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, is that, if there is evidence that proves that various social security policies would provide better outcomes than other policies when it comes to child poverty, surely it is the duty of the Scottish Government to provide that evidence, in line with the questions that the committee is asking. For example, what specific evidence have you found to show that the delivery of mitigation of the two-child cap would provide better outcomes than, say, an increase in the Scottish child payment? Where is that evidence?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Liz Smith
The committee asked for an options paper because making such interventions is a very expensive business and, given the state of the public finances at the moment, we cannot afford to do everything that we would like to do, so big choices must be made. The Scottish Government will argue that the choices on its social contract with the people of Scotland are its number 1 priority. However, that social contract can come about only if we have the money coming in to deliver it.
I would argue strongly—as, I think, would the committee—that the public finances are under considerable strain. Therefore, if choices must be made, surely we need an options paper to show where you think the outcomes will be most effective. That is why the committee asked for that.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Liz Smith
I do not think that that explains the difference between the DWP and Social Security Scotland.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Liz Smith
I do not doubt that ministers have had discussions on the matter. Our job as the Finance and Public Administration Committee is to look at the effective spend of our public finances and to ensure that the evidence is there to support the choices that are made. My colleague Michael Marra asked for a specific options paper that we could scrutinise to look at what you call investments when it comes to various policies. A good investment will have good results. Therefore, if there are various options that involve different kinds of investment, you will want to weigh up the balance of the effective outcomes, particularly when it comes to action on child poverty, which is the Scottish Government’s number 1 priority. I do not think that we have had that information.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Liz Smith
That would be helpful.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Liz Smith
Let us assume that action on child poverty is the number 1 priority for the Scottish Government—which, as I understand it, it is. Given the state of the public finances, particularly with the considerable uplift in the social security budget—it is a huge increase, especially in a single budget—we cannot afford all the commitments that the Scottish Government has made without finding an awful lot of extra money.
There are two parts to my question. First, where is that extra money coming from? Secondly, on what basis is the Scottish Government making decisions on where the outcomes will be best when it comes to the delivery of social security?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Liz Smith
Cabinet secretary, I want to pursue our dialogue about social security spend. At your most recent appearance before the committee, you made various commitments. I will start with one that you made to Michael Marra when he asked you, in relation to the various aspects of the two-child cap mitigation,
“Will you write to the committee with information on the options appraisal that you carried out, setting out why you chose that option in preference to some of the others?”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 14 January 2025; c 43.]
What has happened to that commitment?
