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 380 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Ash Regan
That is a fair comment. As I said to the committee, we have wrestled over that area. I have set out my preferred approach, which may not end up being the committee’s or the Parliament’s preferred approach. I chose it because I believe that, in relation to some laws that have been in place for a very long time and in different circumstances, we now have updated ways of thinking about things and conceptualising exploiters and the exploited.
To me, the approach that I have set out seems like the most straightforward way to achieve the policy intent. However, I accept that there are other ways of going about that, and I am open to further discussion on whether it might be better to go down the route that has been taken in other recent pieces of legislation, such as the Miners’ Strike (Pardons) (Scotland) Act 2022 or the Historical Sexual Offences (Pardons and Disregards) (Scotland) Act 2018.
We will go away and do a bit more research and work on that area. We will speak to some of the stakeholders about that part of the bill in more detail. I agree with you that there is a discussion to be had there.
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee [Draft]
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Ash Regan
A number of witnesses have raised the issue of how the Parliament measures the outcomes that are produced by the supported bodies. The committee has received some evidence, albeit in private session, that suggests that there are serious challenges in some areas—possibly more for advocacy-based supported bodies. Do you have any views on how that could be improved?
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee [Draft]
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Ash Regan
I want to focus slightly more on that, to get your opinion on it.
If a commissioner that is funded by the corporate body is potentially not fulfilling its remit as set out in its enabling legislation, and if Parliament is perhaps not doing its job effectively with regard to scrutiny, would that be a concern? Would you seek to suggest that the Parliament step up in some way?
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee [Draft]
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Ash Regan
I come to my final question. There are other bodies that are funded directly by the Scottish Government and their oversight, scrutiny and governance arrangements are, in some cases, quite different from those that apply to bodies that the corporate body would fund. I do not know how far you are aware of those arrangements. Do you think that anything could be learned from the way in which the Government carries out scrutiny of the other bodies that it funds?
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee [Draft]
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Ash Regan
The committee has taken evidence that suggests that office-holders should be scrutinised by a parliamentary committee at least once a year. Do you have any views on that, and do you think that the timing is appropriate?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Ash Regan
Yes—that is what I was going to add. In addition to what Douglas Ross said, we could and should be doing post-legislative scrutiny better as a Parliament.
The other thing that I would add is about something that I was not particularly aware of. I have just started sitting on the SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee, which is an extra short-life committee, and, during our discussions, it has come out that members of the Scottish Parliament and its committees are responsible for monitoring the performance of the bodies that are supported and funded by the parliamentary corporate body. MSPs and committees are possibly not aware of that, and they are certainly not doing that as they should be.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Ash Regan
No—I think that we can get more capacity by making committees smaller.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Ash Regan
That is just my opinion—you can take it or leave it.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Ash Regan
It would be possible if we had fewer members on each committee—that is my point. If we cut the numbers down and did not have such big committees, potentially, there would be an opportunity for members not to have to sit on so many committees. I think that we would all agree that committee participation is very important, and I do not think that members are able to give it the commitment or level of attention that they should if they sit on three committees, or two very big ones. That is my experience.
I also think that we should consider having elected conveners.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee [Draft]
Committee Effectiveness Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 May 2025
Ash Regan
There is certainly a place for setting out to new members, when they come in, what function and remit a committee has in Parliament, just to ensure that everyone is clear about what they are here to do.
It is a while—about nine years ago now—since I first arrived, but I, too, remember the training on questioning that we got in 2016, which I thought was useful. I think that that was when the Parliament first started to do an induction programme. I believe that it might have been updated since then, for 2021, but I do not know how successful that was.
With regard to CPD, there may be an opportunity for that. When members first come in, it may be worth while refreshing certain skills. It appears to me that some members did not get the memo on that questioning training, which was about being succinct and getting to the point, whereas—as we all know—a lot of waffling goes on.
