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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 1419 contributions
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 November 2025
Carol Mochan
That is helpful—thank you.
I have one more question, which is about the focus on physical disability and whether mental and behavioural disorders are picked up in the way that they should be. Do you have any feedback on that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 November 2025
Carol Mochan
I will explore some of the points that you made about inconsistency. The report describes stakeholder views that ADP decisions can appear inconsistent. A couple of constituents have raised issues with timescales for redeterminations, appeals at the First-tier Tribunal and challenges around that. People I have been speaking to have wondered about inconsistent decision making. Did you get much of that in producing the report?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 November 2025
Carol Mochan
Audit Scotland has recommended defining acceptable levels of client satisfaction. Can that be done in a way that provides meaningful opportunities for improvement and which avoids arbitrary target setting?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 November 2025
Carol Mochan
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the financial sustainability of Ayrshire College. (S6O-05213)
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 November 2025
Carol Mochan
Forecasts show that most colleges are not sustainable. Ayrshire College is facing a £2.1 million reduction in core teaching funding, over and above a 20 per cent real-terms cut since 2021-22. That huge blow means that the college is already having to make difficult decisions. Does the Government recognise that, and that it must work urgently with the college and its trade unions to address its funding challenges and ensure that we secure and protect jobs, alongside young people’s education?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 26 November 2025
Carol Mochan
Data released only yesterday revealed that NHS Dumfries and Galloway has the third lowest rate of child dentist registrations in Scotland. Significant inequalities exist, with more than a 10 per cent gap between children living in the most and least deprived areas. Why are children in Dumfries and Galloway considerably worse off when it comes to registration? What is the Government’s response to that inequality, and what action will it take to address it?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 25 November 2025
Carol Mochan
I thank Michelle Thomson for bringing the debate to the chamber; I am pleased to speak in it. I acknowledge the work of the cross-party group on St Andrew’s day and the people who continue to run that group, as others have mentioned.
The motion highlights the on-going work of the former MP and MSP Dennis Canavan to ensure that St Andrew’s day continues to be an important day that recognises our patron saint. He took forward the campaign to make it a bank holiday to be enjoyed by everyone.
As a proud Scot, I believe that it is really nice, and important, that we—like many countries around the world—celebrate our patron saint as part of celebrating our history, our culture and our country. When I was young, I had family who lived abroad for many years, and they enjoyed St Andrew’s day and saw it as a great opportunity to invite international friends over to enjoy and celebrate Scotland. The real wonder was in people from cultures from around the world enjoying one another’s culture; that was so important to them.
St Andrew is both Scotland’s patron saint and our national symbol, officially recognised—as others have said—in the 1320 declaration of Arbroath. The relationship is represented by the saltire flag, with the blue-and-white X-shaped cross symbolising the way in which St Andrew was martyred. In addition, as the motion states, we need to acknowledge
“the economic benefits that global recognition brings to Scotland through the culture, business, education, tourism and retail sectors, supported by the use of the Saltire as both the national flag and the ‘Brand Scotland’ identifier of Scottish produce and marketing”.
We see that in Scotland, and I am sure that others will often see it when they are abroad. People will notice our flag in shops and retail outlets, wherever they go. We have great relationships around the world.
St Andrew’s day is recognised and celebrated around the world by people who believe that they have a connection to Scotland. They are known as the Scottish diaspora. The diaspora consists of Scottish people who emigrated—as we know, we were a great nation for emigrating around the world—and now their descendants, whose number is estimated to be anything between 30 million and 40 million people.
I know that, in my South Scotland region, there is plenty going on this week to celebrate St Andrew’s day. That includes traditional events such as ceilidhs, and a mixture of others involving important history and institutions. In my area, the local Burns club is having an evening event to celebrate the day, and there is even karaoke. I am sure that those who are attending are very pleased that I will be dealing with amendments later tonight, so I will not be singing in Ayrshire.
In a world where there is such division as there is today, I hope, as we celebrate St Andrew’s day, that—as others have said—we can look beyond the division to a message of hope and unity that we in this country and around the world so desperately need. We know that St Andrew would have hoped for that also.
I thank Michelle Thomson again for bringing the debate to the chamber, and I thank members for their contributions.
17:47Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 20 November 2025
Carol Mochan
Good morning. A key argument for the inclusion in the bill of a definition of the term “sustainable development” is that there is no statutory definition of it, but, as we have heard, there are multiple references to the term in law. How would a new definition simplify the landscape?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 20 November 2025
Carol Mochan
You might have answered this question in your opening remarks, but, to be clear, what is behind the decision to align the definition of sustainable development with the concept of wellbeing? Do you have a few words to describe that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 20 November 2025
Carol Mochan
I get the need for the term to be understandable. The committee has heard evidence that the definition could be strengthened—in particular, by referring explicitly to environmental limits and planetary boundaries. Do you have a view on that?