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 922 contributions
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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 10 March 2026
Alexander Stewart
Good morning, cabinet secretary. You have already given some assurances about your intentions for the regulations. There is no doubt that it could be much more complicated and complex for those who live in rural settings to meet those requirements. It would be good to get a flavour from the Scottish Government as to whether it considers that it might be difficult for some private landlords in rural areas to meet the timescales that you expect of them. Would the proposed timescales result in quick fixes, which some, but not all, landlords would be able to achieve? Does the Scottish Government perceive that there will be difficulties in rural areas, and what might they be?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 10 March 2026
Alexander Stewart
You identified that, in managing the situation, the goal and objective that you want to achieve is to ensure that the individuals who have to live in such conditions are supported and managed. It is not something that they have control over—it is the landlord who has control over following the guidance and the processes that he or she has to manage in their facility. How will the Scottish Government manage some of that? As you have already identified, if the workforce and processes are not available within the timescales, things will slip. Experts will be required to ensure that, if work is done in a unit, a house, a flat or a facility, that work is credible, competent and, as you have identified, sustainable. It is the sustainability that we want to ensure. We do not want the problems to recur after three or six months or a year, leaving the tenants no better off because what was done was only a temporary measure.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 February 2026
Alexander Stewart
Given that the powers are due to come into effect on 1 April, when does the Scottish Government anticipate publishing the guidance on them?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 February 2026
Alexander Stewart
:As you will be aware, minister, the committee heard—and you have heard, too—from some tourism representatives who made the case that a per-night, per-person levy would be “unworkable”. If a local authority decides to introduce such a scheme, how many reviews and appeals does the Scottish Government expect would result from that?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 February 2026
Alexander Stewart
:Cabinet secretary, you have outlined the process and procedures that will take place, but how will the impact of the exemptions on tenants be kept under review? Knowing how this process is to be managed and captured through review is also quite important.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 February 2026
Alexander Stewart
:Thank you.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 19 February 2026
Alexander Stewart
Good morning. When considering medium-term financial planning, how does the Scottish Government take account of the possibility that inflation might differ from the forecasts and of the impact that that might have on social security spending?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Funeral Support Payment
Meeting date: 19 February 2026
Alexander Stewart
You have already covered some aspects of this, but it would be good to get a flavour of what improvements are needed to the administration of funeral support payment. You have all mentioned the difficulties and complexities in that regard and you will all have had experiences, good and bad, to do with the timescales and other aspects of the process. Given the discussion that we have had this morning, I imagine that you will have a good idea of what needs to change. It would be good to hear which areas of the administration of the payment require changes.
We want to see improvements, and you are very much at the coalface of it all, and so it is important that we have that dialogue. Data is also vitally important, as is how it is managed and processed. That is the area that I want to discuss. I do not mind who wants to jump in first so that we can continue the discussion.
10:30
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Funeral Support Payment
Meeting date: 19 February 2026
Alexander Stewart
Roughly, how many people fall into that category, whereby the funeral director does the funeral but, at the end of the day, the person does not have the financial resources to pay for it and the funeral director has to take that hit? Does that happen regularly or only on an ad hoc basis?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Funeral Support Payment
Meeting date: 19 February 2026
Alexander Stewart
That also puts the family in a difficult position because they are relying on what might happen, as are you, but you will be the one who is worse off financially.
