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 1705 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Rural College
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Ross Greer
In parallel with Bill Kidd’s line of questioning, I am conscious that we do not have anyone here who represents students, but various folk have talked about the efforts that you have made to get feedback from students, which is appreciated. Professor Powell, you have mentioned SRUC’s strategic plan a couple of times. Could you talk us through how the perspective of students was taken into account in developing that plan?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Rural College
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Ross Greer
We have heard already from others on the panel—in fact, the convener gave examples from young farmers and farmworkers who have spoken directly to him and other members. Did any of that resonate with you? We had a tangible example of students just wanting to get a hot shower when they have been working outdoors, but the facilities not making that possible. Does that resonate with you? Are you familiar with that feedback, or is this the first time that you are hearing it?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Rural College
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Ross Greer
We have heard tangible examples this morning of clearly negative feedback from students and a clear desire from them for tangible improvements in their learning conditions—for example, being able to get a hot shower if they have been working outdoors. Have you heard such feedback directly, or is today the first time that you have heard about that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Rural College
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Ross Greer
In your personal position, how do you make sure that you engage directly with students? What efforts do you make to ensure that you are getting unfiltered, direct feedback and a broad perspective on what the student body is feeling?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Rural College
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Ross Greer
Mr Hall, a lot of your members are recent former students. Indeed, you will engage all the time with those who are current students. Does the feedback that we have been talking about align with discussions that have? I mean the more informal feedback that, much as there is a high level of satisfaction with the quality of the learning and teaching that is provided by lecturers, there are also tangible frustrations from the students, whether about facilities or even the sense that their voice has not been heard in a lot of the strategic decision making over the last couple of years.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Rural College
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Ross Greer
Fair enough. Thank you. Garry and Jeroen, I know that you are not here to represent the students, but you have a lot of engagement. You have already mentioned some of the discussions that you have had. Is there anything else that you want to add, either about feedback that your members have had from students, or any that you have had directly?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Rural College
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Ross Greer
That was very useful. At the risk of straying out of my agreed area of questioning, I would like to hear from Professor Powell on that point around international students. From what we have heard, it seems that revenue was lost because the administration of bringing in international students was not effective enough. Do you recognise that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Rural College
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Ross Greer
What feedback have they been giving you over the last couple of years, through what has undoubtedly been a challenging period?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Rural College
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Ross Greer
With respect, Professor Powell, I want to press on this point, because we all agree—
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Rural College
Meeting date: 14 January 2026
Ross Greer
We all agree that bringing international students to Scotland has tremendous benefits, but what we have specifically just heard is that, because the administration of that was not effective enough, a £1 million deficit essentially became a £2 million deficit because revenue was lost. There was an opportunity to bring students in earlier and have more revenue, but that was not realised because the administration of the system was not effective enough. Do you recognise that, and is that a point of learning that is being taken on board?
