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 1213 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 April 2025
Jenny Gilruth
I engaged with the SFT on that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 April 2025
Jenny Gilruth
I have set out the SSI; we are dancing on the head of a pin.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 April 2025
Jenny Gilruth
I agree that our schools work every day not to stigmatise those families who are most in need. They are compelled by legislation to ensure that they do not stigmatise, and I trust that they work in our schools every day to ensure that they do not do so.
If the children’s commissioner or the committee have any examples of children being stigmatised on the issue, I am more than happy to consider those, because that would be a real challenge. I would not want that to be happening in our schools. However, I have not been presented with such evidence in the past two years, and I trust Scotland’s teachers and the staff who work in our schools not to stigmatise. They work tirelessly, every day, in a very caring profession, and I do not think that a stigmatising approach is taken in our schools. I have not witnessed such an approach in recent times.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 April 2025
Jenny Gilruth
I do not think that you will be surprised to hear that I do not accept that. The Government’s aspiration for universal free school meals in primary schools remains; I stand by that commitment.
You will have heard extensively, in last year’s debate and in other exchanges in the Parliament, about the unaffordability of delivering such provision during this parliamentary term. Last year’s debate was informed by analysis from the Scottish Futures Trust, which suggested that universality would cost in the region of £256 million. Officials reminded me this morning that that figure is now two years out of date, so we can expect the cost to now be far in excess of £256 million. In the budget and in budget negotiations, we committed to a broader expansion that is focused on those receiving the SCP. If anything, I would argue that the regulations commit us to going more quickly than we otherwise would, because we would give the example—
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 April 2025
Jenny Gilruth
Mr Ross, I know that you are not here to rubber-stamp all my SSIs. You are here to challenge me. That is your job, and it is your right to do so. I respect that—of course I do.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 April 2025
Jenny Gilruth
I have had a lot of discussion and engagement with the university—with the senior management, the trade unions and, last week, the student union. The community of Dundee is very concerned about all this. Mr Rennie and I know, because our constituencies border Dundee over the water, how important the university is to Dundee and the wider economy.
We expect the university to consider alternatives. It is a very challenging time for the University of Dundee in relation to its finances. We have made available that liquidity support, and we are looking at what more we might be able to provide to the university. However, we have not yet had a further ask from the university, and we remain open to such asks.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 April 2025
Jenny Gilruth
Very much so. I need to be mindful of what I say here as cabinet secretary.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 April 2025
Jenny Gilruth
The committee will understand the role of the Scottish Funding Council in this, and that the Government is unable to direct funding in this space. We have to do that under the auspices of the SFC, as set out in the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 April 2025
Jenny Gilruth
The total ask from the university was £22 million. The Government has made £25 million available, as Mr Rennie knows, which is £15 million through the budget and an additional £10 million of capital that I announced more recently, so that funding gap has been met.
As I understand it, there were negotiations about the amount required as part of the budget process and from financial transactions at that time. I do not think there should be any surprise, because the ask of £22 million has been met by the £15 million in the budget and the additional £10 million that I announced.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 2 April 2025
Jenny Gilruth
I would need to check back on that, convener. From memory, at that point in February, the total number had not been communicated to us as ministers because the draft FRP had not been shared with us, and it is the draft FRP that sets out the quantum of job losses.
