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 1019 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
George Adam
Good morning. I will use the Gillies report as a starter. As we have all said at various points today, the report was about the lack of leadership and the leadership culture in the past, but we are back at this point again.
To use Mr Hamill’s example of going to commercial lenders to try to regenerate various parts of the campus and to get equipment for some of the departments, it is normal for a university to try to do something like that. On the whole, though, commercial bankers tend to want to see a strategy and a leadership group that will be there in the long term. However, you might not be there in the next 12 to 18 months.
Given what you are looking at now, is this not a crisis of some priority? From what I can make out—and please correct me if I am wrong—at least four senior posts are still held as interim positions. Would it not be a priority to get to the stage where we can look at people who will be doing that work in the long term? A commercial banker would look at it and say, “Yes, Professor Seaton. That’s all well and good. It’s a great plan, but you’re not going to be here in 18 months.”
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
George Adam
Appointing a chair is your number 1 priority. You have to get that and then work your way down the list of the various processes from there. The point is that it is holding back the idea of the university moving forward. I know that the university is at a crisis point at the moment, but we need to get it into a better place.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
George Adam
Good morning. The definitions are one of the things that I am trying to get my head around. As you have quite rightly said, the teaching trade unions have issues, to put it mildly, with the definition. They will have to deal with it day in and day out, so it will be very difficult for them. There are legal concerns, as well as concerns about what the definition is.
My concern is around what would happen if a teacher was trying to stop a child from doing something that they should not be doing. The definition is so tight that if a teacher grabbed a child who was going to jump in front of a car, that could be construed as restraining a child. I know that that is an extreme example, but it could be seen as some form of restraint. Where do we draw the line? I have some concerns that the definition seems pretty vague and it could be opened up to all kinds of interpretation. The key worry is about where it could end up.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
George Adam
I have taken on board from some the evidence that teachers in the classroom might be second-guessing what they are going to do and how they are going to deal with certain situations, which I am concerned about. I do not like the idea of teachers not knowing how to proceed with something because the definitions in the bill are so vague. It is a challenging enough environment for teachers as it is. Will the bill not cause more problems, or am I my being overly dramatic?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 25 September 2025
George Adam
Good morning, cabinet secretary. I would like to follow on from what Jamie Halcro Johnston was saying about cultural regeneration as a tool to regenerate our town centres, villages and other areas across Scotland.
As you will be aware, I have already gone on at length about the fact that Renfrewshire Council has invested in Paisley, in particular in the town hall, the library and the museum, all of which are on the High Street, in order to try to create footfall in that area. There is also another issue, which is the fact that we have smaller venues—people looking to perform in a major venue will not go to Paisley town hall—and I note that, in your discussion with Jamie Halcro Johnston, you mentioned funding for smaller venues.
The Bungalow music venue, which was previously the Bungalow bar, has an interesting history. In the 1970s, it had all the major punk bands, because Glasgow City Council banned punk. For once, Renfrewshire Council thought that it was a good idea to make some money and encourage people to come to the town centre. How would venues such as that, which are smaller and of significance to the local area, go about engaging with Government in relation to funding? To be fair to the Government, it backed such venues during the Covid period, but they are struggling. They are doing well to get by, but there are still issues that mean that it is a bit of a struggle at times.
11:00Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 25 September 2025
George Adam
The Bungalow is quite interesting as it is a community investment company, not a for-profit organisation, so it ticks all the boxes with regard to the Government’s idea of investing in the future of culture.
I will move on to a different issue. One idea, which just about everyone who gave us evidence brought up, is for the Government to create a cross-portfolio fund, which would encourage organisations to look at things in a cross-portfolio way, too. The Scottish Library and Information Council gave a name to it: a culture and wellbeing fund. However, it could be broader than that. What are your thoughts on creating something along those lines?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 25 September 2025
George Adam
It is all culture.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 25 September 2025
George Adam
I have two questions, which I will ask very quickly.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 25 September 2025
George Adam
Okay, then. I will skip my question about the visitor levy.
Screen Scotland, which is part of Creative Scotland, is a shining beacon of what a successful organisation looks like. The fact that it is being allocated an extra £2 million points to its success.
Earlier, I asked Iain Munro about the organisation and he spoke about how important it is as part of the work that Creative Scotland is doing. It showcases Scottish talent and ability, and there is also the sheer involvement element, which is important for tourism. I have already used the example of walking down the Royal Mile and seeing Americans looking for “Outlander” locations. There is growth in that for us. How do you see us moving forward in that regard? Obviously, we are investing in that, but we can generate some income from it, too.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 25 September 2025
George Adam
Alastair, you have just hit on my next question. Screen Scotland, which is one of your major successes, has created that sort of footfall; you only need walk up the Royal Mile to see American tourists wandering about various places shown in scenes from “Outlander”. Indeed, we members see them when we go back to our digs at night.
You have received an extra £2 million on top of your £2.5 million base budget for that, but I note, too, a 110 per cent increase in inward investment in film in Scotland. That seems quite incredible. I know that there is “Outlander”, and there are other examples such as “Batgirl”—Warner Brothers did decide to scrap it but, hey, Glasgow still got some success from the film actually being made there—and “The Rig”.
I am quite interested in the fact that every £1 invested in film effectively creates £12-worth of economic activity. Surely that is a perfect example of what we are talking about. Do we not need to support such activity and ensure that we create and develop that kind of screen tourism? After all, we seem to be punching well above our weight here in Scotland in that respect.