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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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 May 2025
Douglas Ross
Why can you not do that now, while we are scrutinising the bill?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 May 2025
Douglas Ross
Good.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 May 2025
Douglas Ross
Why has it taken us so long to get to this point? The Government first asked the SFC to look at the issue in 2020. When it did, it said that the
“status quo is not tenable”.
When the committee looked at the issue more than two years ago, it concluded, in March 2023, that the proposal that you have brought forward today was the right approach. Is that the pace that we should be going at, given that what we are talking about is not particularly controversial?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 May 2025
Douglas Ross
Good morning, and welcome to the 18th meeting in 2025 of the Education, Children and Young People Committee. This morning, we have our final evidence session on the Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. I welcome Graeme Dey, Minister for Higher and Further Education; and Minister for Veterans, and his officials from the Scottish Government: Andrew Mott, head of legislation and community learning and development unit; Cath Henderson, apprenticeship team leader; and Alison Martin, solicitor. Thank you all for joining us.
Before we move to members’ questions, we will begin with an opening statement from the minister.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 May 2025
Douglas Ross
Are you comfortable that the minister is committing to giving it to the Parliament before the stage 1 debate? It is just a yes or no answer.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 May 2025
Douglas Ross
Do you agree with the minister that we will get the cost detail before the stage 1 debate?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 27 May 2025
Douglas Ross
Mr Torrance, I know that you have a personal interest in the area—you have made that very clear—and are involved with the Fife Alcohol and Drug Partnership. Your interest has been very helpful to me during the committee’s consideration of the bill.
Clearly, the bill puts an onus on Scottish Government ministers. There is a budget uplift that has to be delivered—we will get into that—but, when I spoke to the Finance and Public Administration Committee about the financial memorandum, concerns were raised about the role of social work departments and local authorities.
Ultimately, the desire is that, under the bill, the Scottish Government would deliver the rights in law. The Scottish Government would then work with ADPs, integration joint boards, councils and others to deliver them, and it would be for the Scottish Government to take that work forward. I think that it is right that the Government is given the flexibility to implement the bill in the way that it believes will deliver the outcomes that the bill seeks.
There is also an important reporting mechanism that allows ministers to be held to account in the Parliament—we will probably come on to speak about reporting. There is a huge deficiency in the numbers that we are able to properly gather on those who are suffering from drug and alcohol misuse. Indeed, many people have spoken about a missing cohort of people who are not included in any official statistics. Having that reporting to Parliament, so that it could hold the Government to account on the elements in that process, would therefore be an important part of both the legislation’s progress and how it is monitored in the years to come.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 27 May 2025
Douglas Ross
Yes. That is hugely important. It goes back to Ms Whitham’s point that any family member or another advocate can come along with someone who is seeking help and support to overcome their addiction. It is vitally important that they are part of the decision-making process—I think that that is one of the most positive elements of the bill—and that they feel supported in seeking that support, because there will be concern. We are dealing with some of the most vulnerable people in our society, and individual advocacy plays an important role in people getting the rights that they deserve, which I hope the bill will enshrine.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 27 May 2025
Douglas Ross
It is important to state that section 3(1) contains a three-week ceiling—and it is very much a ceiling, because it also states that the treatment should be available
“as soon as reasonably practicable”.
That can be on day 1, as soon as the person presents and has met with a medical professional and a treatment has been determined for them.
The point has been rehearsed in some of the evidence that the committee has heard and that it has received in submissions. The reason that the three-week period was chosen was because that is the national standard: 90 per cent of people should wait no longer than that three-week period for specialist treatment. It ties in with what we already have. However, I understand that, for some people, far more urgency is required.
On your question about when the clock starts and stops, it starts when someone seeks help—when they go to a medical professional to get a determination, when they are requesting a certain treatment or having a discussion about the treatment. It does, however, stop and restart if they are not satisfied with the option that is provided by the medical professional and want a second opinion, or if they are not happy or satisfied that no treatment has been suggested. The clock, and the three-week period, would start again when they sought a second opinion.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 27 May 2025
Douglas Ross
First, on rehab, the Scottish Government’s priority is to increase the number of rehab beds by March 2026. Indeed, the former First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, wanted to take the percentage of people getting into rehab from 5 per cent up to around 11 per cent, which is the European average. If I stressed that option in my opening remarks, it was because it is an area in which we are currently seeing development. I know that you have a great deal of experience in this area, as the former Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing.
In many ways, I am trying to work alongside the Government’s current strategies. The investment that the Government is making to increase the number of beds and its ambition to get us up to levels that are similar to those in other European countries can be complemented by the bill. However, section 1(5)(g) provides for
“any other treatment the relevant health professional deems appropriate”,
so that opens up the opportunity for other options.
I take on board the point—I am not saying that it is a criticism—that you make, which is that the bill is looking too much at abstinence. There are a number of elements in it that would support that option, but there are also a number of elements that would allow other treatment options to be made clear and available.
