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 1491 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Ivan McKee
I will let my officials talk about the specifics of that, but, as I said, the policy intent this year—and the purpose of the regulations—is to set the tax at the same rate as that for the rest of the UK to give us a BGA baseline. Next year, there will be scope to look at varying the rate and other factors that could impact on that.
My officials might be able to say a bit more.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Ivan McKee
I think that any engagement and discussions that were had would be a matter of public record. Depending on the group, those minutes might have already been published or will be otherwise available, so I think that we would be very comfortable with sharing them.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Ivan McKee
My officials might have more to say on that, but I will be honest and say that I do not expect that it will be a huge boost. It is, however, an exercise that is required in order to create a level playing field.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Ivan McKee
These amendment regulations remove entitlement to tax credit for new qualifying contributions to the Scottish landfill communities fund from 1 April 2026. From that point, the fund will enter a managed wind-down period of up to 24 months. The regulations include clear transitional projections, and all contributions made before 1 April 2026 will remain qualifying, will continue to attract tax credit and will be spent on community and environmental projects, as intended.
Throughout the wind-down period, Revenue Scotland and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency will continue to administer and regulate the scheme, ensuring continuity of oversight until the fund is formally closed. Members may wish to note that the decision to close the fund followed a public consultation in 2025 and extensive engagement with Revenue Scotland and SEPA. The regulations will ensure that an orderly and responsible conclusion to the fund will fully meet existing commitments.
I am happy to take questions.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Ivan McKee
Yes, we will consider the point.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Ivan McKee
Point taken.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Ivan McKee
I think that there already is such a principle. The projections, whether they are from the medium-term financial strategy or whatever, show that the revenues from the tax were expected to reduce over a number of years. It is absolutely the case that that will have been factored into the longer-term calculations for tax and spend, and it is clearly compensated in the round by decisions that are taken on other taxes. Everyone knew that that was the situation. The numbers would have been planned over the medium term, and those taking other tax policy decisions would have done so while fully cognisant of that fact.
On the other side, it is clear that it would have been known that the fund’s community benefit would not continue forever. Everybody would have been well aware of its time-limited nature. At the outset, the question was, “Do you want to take the community benefit for that period of time, or do you want to take no community benefit?” Clearly, the answer was that they would take the community benefit for a period of time.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Ivan McKee
What I said is that it was considered as tax policy in the round. When we calculate tax revenue in the future, the fact that this tax is tapering down will be factored into the numbers and projections.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Ivan McKee
I hear what you are saying, but tax policy is considered in the round—we look at total revenue versus total spend and do not have a separate line for environmental taxes per se. We consider each environmental tax on the basis of the behavioural change that we are driving, the impact that it will have on revenue and its longevity, rather than starting with a number and basing our policy on that. We start with the policy and work it that way round.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Ivan McKee
These schemes are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. It is a strict process to be identified as such. I understand what Mr Mason is saying, but I think that processes are in place to prevent that from happening. That is effectively what happens down south.
I am not sure whether my officials might want to comment on that.
