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 1425 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Miles Briggs
I appreciate what the cabinet secretary has said and look forward to hearing about those conversations.
I put on record my hope that the petition will be heard—we will see how the Government responds to it. More importantly, some timescale for that is needed because, given the pace at which the Government wants the bill to be voted on and passed, the petition will not be part of that process. The petition has been sitting unaddressed for the duration of this parliamentary session, but I hope that it is progressed before the election so that a new organisation can be created or further inspection changes can take place.
I will not press amendment 157 or move my other amendments in the group.
Amendment 157, by agreement, withdrawn.
Amendments 306 and 307 not moved.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Miles Briggs
I think that the cabinet secretary has met with Beth Morrison about her Calum’s law campaign. I do not know whether Daniel Johnson’s bill will time out in the current parliamentary session, but it seeks to improve data collection, the recording of incidents and the training of individuals. It does not look as though that is captured in amendment 88, so perhaps the cabinet secretary would look to lodge an amendment at stage 3 to include that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Miles Briggs
I fully respect the point that the petition that I have mentioned is still live, but will the potential discussions that the cabinet secretary has referred to include the establishment of what the petitioners have been seeking—that is, an independent national whistleblowing officer not just for education but for wider children’s services in Scotland? That is currently missing, and I point out that we have moved to provide such a function for health services, for example. Is that something that the Government would consider?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Miles Briggs
The responses to our call for views highlighted concerns around a lack of representation of employers in industry. Have you read those responses? What is your take on how you would ensure that that works?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Miles Briggs
I raised the matter with the minister during education portfolio questions on 24 April, and the letter that he sent to me on 30 April said that the analysis would be received in June, which would then allow you to update your information. Is that still—
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Miles Briggs
I am not sure that I can get the cabinet secretary to make another intervention on Pam Duncan-Glancy, but I think that it is important that there is an opportunity for a refresh. I wonder whether the member, along with the cabinet secretary, could go away and think about a suitable amendment for stage 3. We all want confidence to be rebuilt in the new organisation, and I am sympathetic to what the member is trying to achieve. I do not know whether the Scottish Government needs to be a bit more flexible on what the transitional arrangements look like. Where people are not performing, we need to build in opportunities for a review to take place.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Miles Briggs
I just caught the cabinet secretary at the end there. The matter goes back to conversations that the committee had following the tragedy at Liberton high school. It was then quite clear that, with regard to parliamentary scrutiny, there had to be an opportunity to at least review where that documentation is being held. My colleague Ross Greer referred to issues in another council area. Will the cabinet secretary be open—perhaps not as part of the bill—to consider what that will look like?
Having been a member of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, I have specific concerns that a similar situation exists for social housing, specifically with regard to RAAC. However, I think that most people would expect that documentation to be held and viewed when inspections take place in our school estate. I do not know whether the cabinet secretary could at least review the matter, given that local authorities are the ones that currently hold that documentation. I have not seen a practice in place to provide public transparency on that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Miles Briggs
Good morning. As we have touched on, scrapping the Scottish Apprenticeship Advisory Board, as the bill proposes, presents many questions. I go back to a point that you made, Clare Reid, on further involvement from regional employers. How would you see an apprenticeship committee working, if one is established within the SFC? What role would industry play in that? I have specific concerns in relation to where private training providers who provide certification and registration would sit in that structure. I put that question to you again. What is your understanding of what that structure would look like?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Miles Briggs
The bill does not include any targets for apprentices or set minimum levels for service agreements, for example, for either apprentices or employers. Have your members raised that aspect?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Miles Briggs
Like other members, I am very sympathetic to what Pam Duncan-Glancy is trying to achieve. However, I am not quite sure where she has got the six-month period from. I do not know what the cabinet secretary will say in her closing remarks, but perhaps something could be considered on the time period for serving on the board or having a refresh. Given the need to move the new organisation forward, I am slightly concerned about the six-month period creating uncertainty.
