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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 1182 contributions
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Willie Rennie
The subtle change of tone from the First Minister is mildly welcome, but I am afraid that she is not doing enough on this. It is about children’s rights and she does not seem to be that bothered about it.
The United Kingdom Information Commissioner’s Office has called a halt to the scheme in North Ayrshire, but it should never have got this far. The SNP Government previously opposed the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner having a role in health and education. If the First Minister will not intervene on facial recognition, will she support the expansion of the remit of the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner so that he can intervene?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Meeting date: 27 October 2021
Willie Rennie
The cabinet secretary has been left to clean up John Swinney’s blunder over national testing. Having scrapped the national survey just a few years ago, the Government, this time with its tail between its legs, is now bringing it back. Why on earth is the cabinet secretary still clinging on to a national collection of local testing data, even though that leads to damaging school league tables?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Meeting date: 27 October 2021
Willie Rennie
I am not sure that the minister’s increasingly aggressive language towards the RMT will resolve the issue. Could he answer Mr Bibby’s question? Was there a counter offer, and was it accepted or rejected by the minister?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Meeting date: 27 October 2021
Willie Rennie
What does the Deputy First Minister have to say to many of my constituents who continue to experience, as they have done for some time, issues with incomplete vaccine records, which make it incredibly difficult for them to get access to the vaccine passport? Is that not just another example of the failed vaccine passport system? It is about time that he ditched it.
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Meeting date: 26 October 2021
Willie Rennie
It is important that we all stand up against spiking. On Wednesday, I will address a protest at the University of St Andrews, and I want to report to the protesters that the Scottish Parliament is taking action on spiking. A successful testing-strip promotion scheme is already in place in Lincolnshire that provides free test strips for all venues. Would the Scottish Government be prepared to roll out a similar scheme in Scotland, as well as fund it?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Meeting date: 26 October 2021
Willie Rennie
After years and years of delay, during which carbon capture was on, then off, then on again, the biggest loser has been the planet. I support the Scottish Government’s call for the decision to be reversed, but does the minister agree that what is most important is that the project actually happens this time?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Meeting date: 26 October 2021
Willie Rennie
If the Scotland Loves Local gift card is to have a meaningful economic impact on retail, it needs to operate at scale; otherwise, it will just be tokenistic. How many businesses have made bulk purchases of the card for their employees, and how many cards has the Government bought for its employees?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Willie Rennie
National assessments were originally introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s Government, before they were scrapped by the Liberal Democrat-Labour Government here, because they resulted in crude league tables. The recent OECD report criticised the use of the Scottish Government’s assessments for national monitoring purposes, and now we have crude league tables once again. Why is the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills more persuaded by the logic of Margaret Thatcher than that of the OECD?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Willie Rennie
If they had not done so before, the value of and the need for unpaid carers have shone brightly throughout the pandemic. The bill is our commitment that recognises their commitment. It does not cover every carer—it falls far short of doing that—but those it does cover will receive an essential supplement to their income. It is an essential supplement, but we should never kid ourselves that it will be enough for most. We know the financial struggles that carers endure week in, week out, which is why we must return to the issue when we consider shaping the new benefit—Scottish carers assistance.
I had hoped that the Government would end the uncertainty about next year, at least by committing to the supplement for next year. However, unpaid carers now face the prospect of a cut next year, just like the universal credit cut, because the trauma of the pandemic has not ended. In fact, the costs continue to rise for carers just as they do for everyone else.
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Willie Rennie
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how it plans to implement the recommendations made by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on Scottish national standardised assessments in its report, “Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence: Into the Future”. (S6O-00252)