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 3572 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 February 2026
John Mason
Does that put all the onus on the chair? What if the chair makes a decision with which others disagree that a case should be considered by three panel members?
A lot of the debate has previously centred on the view that three should be the norm, and that only relatively minor issues should be considered by a panel of one. In amendment 27, proposed new subsection 6B(2) of the 2011 act states:
“The selected chairing member must”,
and continues thereafter. What happens if the single chairing member makes an error, or whatever?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 February 2026
John Mason
I hear what the minister is saying, and she is saying it very strongly, but I have also listened to what Ross Greer and other members have said. What about a child who has had bad experiences with lots of adults and assumes that an advocate will be just the same? That would be a challenging position for the advocate, but their aim would be to win the child round and put them in exactly the position that the minister describes, with the child feeling in charge and in control of the situation. If we do not have an opt-out model, the child would not have the opportunity even to try that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 February 2026
John Mason
I totally agree with what the minister has just said but, to echo Martin Whitfield, I note that we could maybe put something about that into the bill at stage 3 in order to tighten it up. My fear is that it could be too convenient for a chair to say, “It’ll be easier for me to make a decision rather than having the hassle of getting other people involved.”
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Legacy Issues (Finance)
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
John Mason
Should we just say that sustainability of local government should be a priority for it, without going into any more specifics? Do you think that that is the way that we should—
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Legacy Issues (Finance)
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
John Mason
Thank you.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
John Mason
Michael Marra is arguing against the levy, and I have some sympathy for that, but is the fault not at Westminster, which has brought in such a levy in England and, effectively, put us into a corner whereby we have to do so as well, when it would have been better just to put it on to corporation tax or something like that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
John Mason
Well, the charge will be passed down the line. I know that the Government’s argument is that land prices would fall because of the bill, but I am sceptical about that, and the committee heard from witnesses who were also sceptical about it. I think the charge will be passed down the line to whoever ends up being the end user, as happens with a tax such as VAT.
I would like the Government to agree to the amendments. If they need a bit of tweaking at stage 3, we could certainly do that, but agreeing to them now would set out the principle. The idea that homelessness residential places might be affected—that someone would build a hotel and it would immediately be filled with homeless people—seems very unlikely, but perhaps that could happen. I hope that the minister will agree to the amendments. If they need to be tweaked, they could be tweaked later on.
11:00
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
John Mason
No.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
John Mason
I note that the member includes the term “housing emergency” in his amendments. Is there a legal definition of that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
John Mason
Amendment 31 would set a base level—it could be higher or lower than that—and we will see what the Government thinks about it. Patrick Harvie is correct that we do not need to include any reliefs or rates in the bill and, overall, that is what is happening. However, I want to pass on the point that the Scottish Property Federation suggested to me—I agree with it, because I see it happening in my constituency—that setting a level would set a marker that indicates that we want to take action on brownfield land.
I move amendment 30.
