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 1517 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Emma Harper
Eddie Fraser of East Ayrshire Council told us in evidence that the council uses electric cars for care workers, which I think is welcomed by the staff. Thank you.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Emma Harper
I have a supplementary question. As a former theatre nurse, I am interested in all the changes that have been made in relation to medical gases, green theatres and so on. It is important to get people on the right inhaler, and I have been involved in learning about changes to the propellant gases that are used in multidose inhalers. There are concerns that the propellants currently used for multidose inhalers contribute to climate emissions, so is that change happening fast enough?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Emma Harper
How does climate change disproportionately affect people with disabilities and carers?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Emma Harper
Good morning, cabinet secretary. I think that you have already answered my question, because you have said that discussions, or dialogue, are on-going with the UK Government, and that they will continue until votes are taken and decisions are made about the bill going through the UK Parliament and the bill in the Scottish Parliament. I am just interested to hear a wee bit more about the discussions that have taken place and how things will proceed until decisions are made here in Scotland and then again at Westminster.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Emma Harper
Thanks.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Emma Harper
I have loads of questions, but I will kick off with these. Are you aware of any health impact assessments that have been carried out in relation to policies covered by the climate change plan? If so, what were the findings? If not, what do you think such assessments could or would tell us?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 20 January 2026
Emma Harper
I have a quick question. We have been talking about population health. This evidence session is about emissions reduction and the things that we can do. Professor Sir Gregor Smith gave evidence to the committee about the climate change impacts of pandemic planning for the NHS. We know that people with disabilities and health inequalities may suffer more disproportionately from climate impacts. I am also thinking about disease management, such as for mosquito-borne or avian influenza—I am not saying that avian influenza is mosquito-borne—and other such diseases. Climate change is causing issues with zoonotic diseases and there may be an impact on humans, too. Are those part of the planning for the future impact of climate and disease management?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Emma Harper
I am interested in finding out what we need in the rural support plan that supports actions that the Government wants to take in the climate change plan. What specific information in the rural support plan would make you confident that agricultural policy will provide agriculture with a clear direction of travel and support a just transition to low-carbon farming?
A lot of farms out there are achieving a lot. There are anaerobic digestion plants on dairy farms in the south-west of Scotland that are using their own digestate, creating biogas and using it as part of achieving their net zero goals. I am interested in hearing specifically what we need to see in the rural support plan.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Emma Harper
The evidence has been very interesting, but I want to pick up on what Beatrice Wishart was saying about Food Standards Scotland and its latest dietary intake in Scotland’s children—or DISH—survey. When the Health, Sport and Social Care Committee scrutinised the climate change draft plan yesterday, we heard that, according to research, people in Scotland already eat less than 70g of red meat a day. The worry was that Food Standards Scotland’s information was being misinterpreted and that, if people in Scotland were already eating less meat to that extent, they would be facing a micronutrient deficit. I would also note that we are trying to get more people to eat venison in Scotland, which is quite lean red meat.
I am interested in issues such as food miles, food production and all of the supply chain aspects, because I do not want a reduction in our animals in Scotland if they can allow us to meet our dietary targets with fewer food miles. Do we need to make people more aware of this? It is all about food supply and food production, and it kind of links with Ariane Burgess’s question about supermarkets, too.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Draft Climate Change Plan
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Emma Harper
I have a quick supplementary question. We are talking about fertiliser, and there is an opportunity for fertiliser that is natural digestate from anaerobic digestion processes. If a dairy farm, for instance, used its farm digestate, that would be a circular economy. Does that need to be pushed, researched or engaged with more?
