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 592 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Carol Mochan
That is very helpful.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Carol Mochan
My final question was going to be whether your plan will be dynamic enough to deal with issues as they emerge, but it definitely sounds as though, as well as doing what you are doing, you will aim to deal with issues that emerge if they can be dealt with quickly.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Carol Mochan
Lovely. Thank you.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Carol Mochan
Thank you for your evidence so far on the democratic process that exists to ensure that we have accountability. We want to hear the voices of the third sector, carers and users of services, and Mr Smellie touched on trade unions. How can we make sure that that is part of the process, and how does it add to the accountability of members who vote currently?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Carol Mochan
Your discussion with Emma Harper was very helpful. I have spoken to people in that area and, right through pregnancy, there is some of that batting back and forth. As you say, it is about trying to help people to understand each other’s side and come to a conclusion. It is helpful to hear that you will be doing that work.
That leads on to the questions that I was going to ask you. You mentioned that there is such a big remit and that it is a Pandora’s box. I am interested to know how you are going to select your strategic priorities. Have you had a think about that? The committee’s report highlighted that it would be important to have a strategic plan. Is that starting to get put into place?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Carol Mochan
As part of your plan, do you see yourself saying that people are telling us about issues now and that we need action to address them now?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Carol Mochan
I can tell how keen you are to get that voice of lived experience—that is great to hear, because I know that that is what people are trying to do. It is just about seeing how we can get there.
Somebody on the previous panel talked about lunch clubs and gardening groups, and about thinking of the third sector and lived experience in that really wide way. To build on Paul Sweeney’s point, is the range of different lived experience on IJBs across Scotland mapped out at all? Your officials might have done that work. It would be good for us to get that information—not necessarily today, but at some point.
My other point is about accountability, which links to the mapping issue. We want this to happen, but we also want to know that there is accountability, that people have representation and that they can go back and forward. Some of the work that has been talked about is great, but how do we make sure that it is happening across Scotland?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Carol Mochan
Perfect. Thank you.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 29 January 2026
Carol Mochan
That is helpful. I appreciate your time.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 29 January 2026
Carol Mochan
Good morning. I want to ask about the effects of inflation, which I know you have already touched on in your answers.
To what extent do changing inflation forecasts pose a risk to the social security budget? How do you feel the Scottish Government handles its inflation forecasting in relation to its overall budget?
