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 1882 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Scottish Fiscal Commission (Economic and Fiscal Forecasts)
Meeting date: 10 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
That is very helpful. I will pick up on a comment that you made earlier about HMRC. Have you got any indication from HMRC as to whether it might start to make more data available? You were talking about self-employed people, and, with the making tax digital programme coming during the next tax year, there will be much more data available, even if it is not collected—and it could be during future phases. There must also be more data available with people making interim, mid-year payments, which came in a few years ago. The whole point is to make data more readily available to mitigate the problem of the self-employed figures.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Scottish Public Inquiries (Cost Effectiveness)
Meeting date: 10 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
Mr McGowan, I have a question for you. In this inquiry, we have touched on the potential perception, real or otherwise, of a conflict of interest. Have you had any initial engagement on that? I note that at point 5 of your submission, with regard to what you refer to as the “Rangers case”, you say:
“The form and nature of this Inquiry has yet to be confirmed.”
Have you had discussions with Government as to the nature of that inquiry, given the significant potential for interest? For example, it could be led by somebody from the Scottish legal fraternity, which is relatively small, with many lawyers going to the Crown Office and vice versa. Have any such discussions taken place?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Scottish Public Inquiries (Cost Effectiveness)
Meeting date: 10 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
Of course, but surely you would be pushing to protect yourself and your reputation. Surely your view—I am interested to hear whether this is, indeed, your view—would be that the inquiry must, ideally, be led by someone external to Scotland altogether, because of the potential conflict of interest given the Crown Office’s role in the Rangers case.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Scottish Public Inquiries (Cost Effectiveness)
Meeting date: 10 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
I am not necessarily focusing on that. It is about the decision-making processes—and not only the question whether an inquiry should be set up, but its nature in respect of good governance. That is why I am asking the question.
I do not have anything else to ask, convener.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
Professor Escobar, do you have any final comments on the issue?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
It is really interesting for me to understand what the blockers are and to what extent the bill can be an enabler. Economic strategy, in and of itself, can indicate intent, but it does not necessarily bring all the pots of money to the table. We have some control over various things in the public sector, some of which Councillor Forson mentioned, but we also talked earlier about small and medium-sized enterprises. Primarily, much of their funding will come from banks, which will take a completely different view of the matter, given their attitude to risk, and they may not be at the table.
I am trying to get a sense of how much of a shunt the bill could provide, although, in my assessment, there would still be considerable blockers. As Councillor Forson said, as a minimum, we do not want the bill to get in the way.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
I am not disputing that; I am simply trying to gain from you an understanding of where we are at. Even if—assuming that the bill goes through—the Government sends out a clear indication of its intention, in and of itself, that will not necessarily attract the range of funding that would be required to enable projects. Even if we completely agree that community wealth building is good and should attract funding, it will not do so in and of itself. I am trying to get a better understanding of where we are at.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
Thank you very much.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
Good morning, and thank you for joining us. You have started to touch on this already in the various comments that you have all made, but I am interested in your assessment of whether, if the bill is right, the money will come. There are elements that we are already doing—I am thinking about community asset transfer, and procurement has also been mentioned. Theoretically, the bill should enable additional things. I appreciate Oliver Escobar’s comment about local councils, although they have more borrowing powers than the Scottish Government does, because they have the prudential borrowing scheme.
Based on the experience that you all have, do you think that the bill, in and of itself, will help to facilitate clearer lines of sight on funding? Perhaps Councillor Forson might like to come in first, because Clackmannanshire Council has already been doing some of this work, so she will be acutely aware of the funding challenges that exist in the work that the council has under way.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 4 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
I will bring in Professor Escobar shortly. I completely agree that, arguably, our entire financial system is geared to the bigger, the clearer and the perception of less risk, which means that something needs to be tried and tested. That seems counterintuitive to some of the changes that could be effected at community level by the bill, but we are where we are.
