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 1745 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Group-based Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation
Meeting date: 25 February 2026
Ross Greer
::I will follow up on the point about mandatory reporting. I do not disagree with anything that Craig Naylor or Professor Jay were saying about that, but there is an element of trade-off, as some people would not come forward to a person from who they would seek pastoral or other support if they felt that that was going to be referred and reported. What mitigations can be put into place with a mandatory reporting system so that we do not have a situation in which people will not simply not come forward for support that they may otherwise have received?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Group-based Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation
Meeting date: 25 February 2026
Ross Greer
::What would happen if, for example, as you mentioned, we were to apply mandatory reporting obligations for religious organisations? What would happen if church ministers were covered by mandatory reporting requirements and a young person who comes to them to disclose that they have been abused said, “I do not want you to take this to the police. I am coming to you only because I need pastoral support”?
There is a risk that, if we introduce mandatory reporting, some people would not approach anyone to receive support. I do not disagree with your point about mandatory reporting, but how do we militate against such circumstances?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
VAT and Independent Schools
Meeting date: 18 February 2026
Ross Greer
Lorraine, if I picked you up right, you said that your expectation is that, in the next financial year, or the next school year, the policy will cost more than it saves or generates. What is the working behind that? I take on board your point to John Mason about the UK Government’s figure of £1.7 billion or £1.8 billion being the projection for 2029-30, but the expectation for 2026-27, which is the imminent financial year, is that the policy would raise £1.5 billion across the UK. How have you worked out that there would actually be a net loss in Scotland?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
VAT and Independent Schools
Meeting date: 18 February 2026
Ross Greer
That would be useful. I have not looked at that report today, but my recollection from looking at it previously is that they had not laid out all their methodology.
I could be wrong about this specific point, but one question that occurred to me goes back to John Mason’s point about falling school rolls in the state primary sector because of demographic changes and a lower birthrate. I am not sure whether details such as that are being considered. It is true that your school rolls have fallen disproportionately more than would be the case purely on the basis of the falling birthrate, but that is part of it and I would want to ensure that such figures were extracted before any conclusion was reached.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
VAT and Independent Schools
Meeting date: 18 February 2026
Ross Greer
You mentioned bursaries. My understanding is that, UK-wide, only 1 per cent of children in fee-paying schools are on a full bursary. What is the equivalent figure for Scotland? Bursaries vary massively from a small discount to 100 per cent. What share of your young people are on a full bursary?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
VAT and Independent Schools
Meeting date: 18 February 2026
Ross Greer
That is a good point to end on. I agree with you absolutely on that point. I support the policy, clearly, but I cannot for the life of me understand why there was not a managed transition and engagement with you. That boggles my mind—I do not get it. I agree with you and you have every sympathy from me on that point, which is probably a good place to end.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
VAT and Independent Schools
Meeting date: 18 February 2026
Ross Greer
Are we talking about 2 to 3 per cent higher, or 10 to 15 per cent?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
VAT and Independent Schools
Meeting date: 18 February 2026
Ross Greer
In that case, it is not only for the elite, but it is, overwhelmingly, for by far the most privileged people. You are right—it is not just privileged people from Scotland; there is a significant international cohort, too. You make the point that there is a benefit to the local family from the fishing community, but they would benefit—and they will now benefit—from VAT being paid, because that money goes into the public services that they will use disproportionately, and far more than the most privileged families will.
11:45
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
VAT and Independent Schools
Meeting date: 18 February 2026
Ross Greer
Part of the reason for that is that that is just not how the public finances work. The money is not hypothecated in that way. However, we could pick out any of a number of new interventions that have been made that disproportionately benefit the most vulnerable children in our society and are roughly cost equivalent to the money that has been recouped through the VAT that we are discussing. For example, in the past year, an additional £15 million of ring-fenced money went into ASN staffing in the state sector. We could pick any of those examples and say that it is roughly cost equivalent, and that would be legitimate.
However, on your point about what privilege is, are you suggesting that the majority of families who send their children to fee-paying schools in Scotland are not privileged?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
VAT and Independent Schools
Meeting date: 18 February 2026
Ross Greer
Is the Scottish figure equivalent to the UK-wide figure?
