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 1461 contributions
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Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 February 2026
Paul McLennan
:Apologies for my technical issues this morning. Minister, I do not know whether you answered this when I was offline, but a key issue that was raised in the recommendations related to tackling the institutionalisation of people with learning disabilities. There are many areas within that. Will you say a bit more about that?
You mentioned the high-level action plan and how we monitor it. My second question is about how we monitor and report back on it. Will you say a bit more about how you see this committee holding the Government to account on that?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 February 2026
Paul McLennan
:I do not know whether I am having connection problems—my apologies.
The second part of my question is about monitoring and reports on the high-level action plan. You talked about monitoring, but I am asking about the reporting back. The key thing for me is that the actions go across a number of portfolios, so the question is how they are reported. We will get reports back, but how do you intend to look at actions to ensure that they are taken across all portfolios and not just this one? The high-level action plan obviously impacts on other portfolios, as well. Could I have your thoughts on that, if that is okay?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Neurodivergence
Meeting date: 24 February 2026
Paul McLennan
:I have a few key questions, which come back to the shared protocol. During various sessions, we have heard about equity of access across private healthcare and the national health service, as well as across different parts of Scotland. My first question is, what can we do to ensure that we have equality of access across Scotland? That is fundamental. What can be done with the shared care protocol?
Secondly, I will move on from diagnosis to the question of who provides support. In my constituency, there is a situation in which a local authority is not letting speech and language therapists operate. Some children have had sessions for a number of years with speech and language therapists who are now not allowed access into schools. The local authority is saying that the support should already be there, but the support that is provided is not enough for those kids. My question is about equity of access across the country and how we ensure that private speech therapists who have been working with kids over a long number of years and who are now not allowed access into a local authority school can provide support. I will have a few other questions after that, but could you start with that, minister?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 February 2026
Paul McLennan
It is great to hear about the progress of the discussions as we look towards the next parliamentary session. The committee made some recommendations on civil legal assistance and you have also talked about that in the chamber, minister. Does anything else need to be done in what we have left of the current parliamentary session? What do you see as the medium and longer-term objectives when the Parliament comes back in the new session?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 February 2026
Paul McLennan
:I have a supplementary question. The minister will remember that I have asked this in the chamber as well. It is about accessibility in more remote areas. Will you touch on that? You gave me an answer in the chamber, but it would be useful for the committee if you could say a little more about equality of accessibility for those in remote areas.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 February 2026
Paul McLennan
:Yes.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
VAT and Independent Schools
Meeting date: 18 February 2026
Paul McLennan
I have a few other questions. Those policies have impacted Compass’s pupil roll. Pupils who attend the school come from all over East Lothian and from different sectors of the community. It is a well-respected school.
To come back to your point about children with additional support needs, I had a couple of meetings with Compass, which also focuses on that, and we talked in particular about the increase in neurodiversity, which is an issue that is impacting schools across Scotland and the rest of the UK. Can you say a little bit more about ASN and neurodiversity? The Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee and the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee have looked at what the sector is doing regarding neurodiversity and at the impact on the education of those with neurodiversity. I know that the parents of children who attend Compass have seen a real benefit.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
VAT and Independent Schools
Meeting date: 18 February 2026
Paul McLennan
You mentioned the interaction with local authorities, and I know that Compass works very well with its local authority. We are probably still in the early stages of seeing the impact on schools of applying VAT to fees. You talked about some numbers dropping already. It might be like asking, “How long is a piece of string?”, but what do you think the impact will be over the next two or three years? If you were to come back here in three years, what do you think you would say that the impact had been?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
VAT and Independent Schools
Meeting date: 18 February 2026
Paul McLennan
I am the member for East Lothian and Lorraine Davidson mentioned Compass, which I have visited a few times. I will come to that in a second. Belhaven Hill school is also in my hometown of Dunbar, and I think that you mentioned that about 5 per cent of children travel into Edinburgh every day to attend schools.
I have a couple of things to ask. You mentioned the short implementation date. That was the biggest concern for Compass. As with any business, it needs to be able to plan around its cash flow into the future. The decision came on top of the employer national insurance contributions, which also put real pressure on the school. Can you say a wee bit more about the cumulative impact of the decision on VAT, as well as the impact of employer national insurance contributions on the sector as a whole? I have a few other questions, but if you could answer that first. Compass has real concerns about its long-term sustainability.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
VAT and Independent Schools
Meeting date: 18 February 2026
Paul McLennan
In my discussions with Compass, that issue was specifically mentioned as being a real concern.
When I last visited Compass, the school had just won a national award for intergenerational education. The Minister for Equalities has been to speak to the school as well. It was fantastic to see the link to the local community, particularly Haddington, and the work that the school has done with people from different parts of the community.
Can you say any more about the sector and its influence in that regard? I can see the importance of the work of Compass in Haddington specifically, but can you say more about the sector’s work more generally?.
