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 798 contributions
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Gordon MacDonald
Oh, right.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Gordon MacDonald
I want to ask about direct awards. At the moment, if my understanding is correct, no direct awards can be made. The ability for direct awards to be made is subject to an announcement that may or may not happen. Is that correct?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Gordon MacDonald
I appreciate that. Apart from Lothian Buses, which I used to work for, all the bus operating companies are privately owned. The money that is provided by the Scottish Government is to offset the difference in cost between the cost of a diesel bus and the cost of a zero-emission bus, but the vast majority of the cost of the vehicle is still borne by the private company. How can we force a private company to use a particular supplier?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Gordon MacDonald
We received some information that said that credit unions are allowed to lend to an organisation as long as it is a member of the credit union and operates in the same area, although there is also a small percentage figure that is the limit that they could lend to that organisation. However, although it seems that there is nothing to prevent any credit union from making such a loan, there is a reluctance to do so, despite the fact that credit unions can take out loan insurance and make secured loans. I do not think that there is anything in the reserved space that is preventing that lending from happening; I think that it is more to do with the fact that credit unions are risk averse. Is there anything that the Government can do to support them to reconsider their position?
09:45Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Gordon MacDonald
Good morning. I will ask a question about finance. Finance is key to all of this in two respects: additional spend through procurement with SMEs; and access to finance for community groups and social enterprises.
There is a huge range in spend on procurement with SMEs. For NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, that accounted for 12.5 per cent of its spend—which I understand is partly due to the drugs bill that it has to pay for—whereas for North Ayrshire Council, the figure was 26 per cent. Should targets be set for SME spend and for local SME spend—that is, spending with companies that are operating within the council or health board area?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Gordon MacDonald
I accept that the situation is very complicated, but if you do not set targets, what will stop organisations just paying lip service to the issue? At the moment, only eight out of 32 local authorities do community wealth building seriously, so what is there to stop an organisation just undertaking a tick-box exercise?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 19 June 2025
Gordon MacDonald
Thank you.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Gordon MacDonald
Good morning. I want to come back to Adrian Sargent for a point of clarification on the finance question. When we were in Alloa a month or so back, one of the credit unions told us that it had substantial deposits but was unable to lend to SMEs, community groups, third-sector organisations and social enterprises because of restrictions. However, I had a look online and found a legislative reform order, introduced by an amendment to the Credit Unions Act 1979, that allows credit unions to lend to those organisations. When you said that there is a need to build the skill set, who is delivering that in the sector? The legislation that I found was passed 14 years ago. Who is trying to build the skill set so that credit unions are aware that, for example, they can lend to SMEs, third-sector organisations and so on?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Gordon MacDonald
The only cap that I am aware of is that you cannot make commercial-type loans of more than 10 per cent of the total assets of the credit union.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Gordon MacDonald
So, in order to open up that financial stream to community wealth building, we have to deal with two things: that the sector is risk averse; and that it lacks skills.