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 3492 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 2 December 2025
Mark Ruskell
Okay, I understand.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 2 December 2025
Mark Ruskell
Cabinet secretary, you said at the beginning of the evidence session that you would seek to amend the bill to remove the reporting provision. We have heard evidence and views from stakeholders that they would like to see an alternative reporting provision, which would follow any conviction to assess how ecocide was allowed to happen and look at how such an incident could be prevented in future. Is that something that you would consider as an alternative to the straight reporting of the bill?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 2 December 2025
Mark Ruskell
I think that other colleagues will want to come in on where some of the lines sit between the existing regime and a potential future regime.
Finally, I want to ask about alignment with EU law, in particular the environmental crime directive. In the past, has the Government considered using the keeping-pace power to align more closely with that? On the face of it, the bill would bring closer alignment with EU law, but the Government could have considered other options for bringing the law in line with that important EU directive, in particular on sentencing.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 2 December 2025
Mark Ruskell
Can that dovetailing be undertaken in the context of the bill, or is there a need to go back and look again at the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Act 2014—if not under the bill, then in future? Is it possible for the 2014 act to simply sit there and seamlessly link in with the provisions in the bill?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 2 December 2025
Mark Ruskell
We have also heard that, where an ecocide offence has been introduced in other countries, it is very much seen as a stand-alone offence the drives a culture change throughout the whole regulatory system. It makes a strong statement about the country’s values and the need to protect the environment. You mentioned that a little in your introductory comments. Do you want to expand on that? What, in reality, do you see as the value of such an offence, given that it is likely that prosecution will be pretty rare?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 2 December 2025
Mark Ruskell
Would that not be, in effect, ecocide?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 2 December 2025
Mark Ruskell
My point is that, if an eight-year prison sentence penalty were available under the 2014 act, would that lead to an equivalent ecocide provision? Are we thinking about something quite distinct by having ecocide at the apex of the legal system—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 2 December 2025
Mark Ruskell
—or is it actually possible to create an ecocide offence under the 2014 act?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 2 December 2025
Mark Ruskell
I want to ask whether the Government will look to amend some of the definitions, should the bill reach stage 2. The bill defines “long-term” as 12 months, but the committee received evidence that it is hard to see how an ecosystem could recover within 12 months, so there were questions about that definition. I do not know whether there are any aspects of the definition of ecocide that you have a firm view on at this time or whether you would be able to say that you will want to put a different figure on something or frame something differently.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 2 December 2025
Mark Ruskell
I have been reflecting on the conversation this morning, and I will play devil’s advocate. If, under the 2014 act, the courts were able to give, say, an eight-year prison sentence as a result of action by somebody or a company that had led to severe and wanton environmental damage, with clear intent—the action was shown to be clearly wilful—would that, in effect, be ecocide? In our evidence, we have heard that there are lots of ways in which to implement an ecocide law. Monica Lennon has brought forward a clear proposal, but I am thinking about other options, including those under the 2014 act. If a responsible officer was imprisoned for eight years, with there being clear and wilful intent, would that, for all intents and purposes, be an ecocide conviction under the 2014 act?
