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 2207 contributions
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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Stuart McMillan
It was something that struck me when I looked at the bill. I assume that it would not be feasible to include such a provision, because the bill is so tightly focused on parliamentarians. I do not imagine that any such amendments would be successful, but I thought I would take the opportunity to ask the question as you are sitting in front of us this morning.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Stuart McMillan
I did not say that I agree with it. I just thought that I would pose the question; that is what we are here to do.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Instruments subject to Negative Procedure
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Stuart McMillan
The committee asked two questions on this instrument, which, from 1 August 2025, amends the eligibility criteria for membership of the Scottish teachers’ pension scheme by amending the principal regulations for the scheme—the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (Scotland) (No 2) Regulations 2014 (SSI 2014/292).
The first question was whether it had been intentional to include a definition of “immediately before” in schedule 1, thus suggesting that the definition applies in each place where it appears, including references in both the new provisions that are inserted by this instrument and existing provisions. The Scottish Government confirmed that the intention had been for the definition to apply only to the new provisions. However, it considers that, in the context of the other 13 provisions, the new definition is inoperative and therefore of no effect.
The second question relates to proposed new paragraph 16(1)(d) of schedule 1 to the principal regulations, as inserted by regulation 4(c) of these amendment regulations. The committee asked the Scottish Government what the words
“this part of the scheme”
meant in the paragraph, and whether its meaning was sufficiently clear. The Scottish Government confirmed that the paragraph is meant to have effect in relation to the scheme as a whole, as established by the principal regulations, and the unintentional ambiguity is regretted. The Scottish Government intends to clarify both issues in the next amending instrument.
Does the committee wish to draw the instrument to the attention of the Parliament on the general reporting ground in that the definition of “immediately before”, as inserted into schedule 1 of SSI 2014/292 by regulation 3 of the instrument, was intended to apply in relation to that term only where it appears in proposed new paragraphs 15B, 15C and 15D, but has been applied to all instances where that term appears in schedule 1; and that the reference to
“this part of the scheme”
in proposed new paragraph 16(1)(d) to schedule 1 of SSI 2014/292, as inserted by regulation 4(c) of the instrument, should be a reference to the scheme as a whole? Does the committee wish to note that the Scottish Government has undertaken to clarify those points in the next amending instrument?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Instruments subject to Negative Procedure
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Stuart McMillan
Also under this agenda item, no points have been raised on the following instrument.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Instruments subject to Negative Procedure
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Stuart McMillan
The purpose of this instrument is to change employee contribution rates by amending the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2015 (SSI 2015/19). The committee asked whether the title of the instrument should in fact be the “Firefighters Pension Scheme (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2025”. The Scottish Government agreed that that would be the more appropriate title. It regretted the departure from drafting convention but considered that the meaning, understanding or effect of the instrument would not be affected by the form of the title in this case.
Does the committee wish to draw the instrument to the attention of the Parliament on the general reporting ground, in respect of the fact that its title is not in line with drafting convention?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Instruments subject to Negative Procedure
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Stuart McMillan
Does the committee also wish to note that the Scottish Government intends to correct a minor cross-referencing error identified by the committee as soon as possible, through a correction slip?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Stuart McMillan
Agenda item 4 is an evidence-taking session with Graham Simpson MSP, the member in charge of the Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill. He is accompanied by?Catriona Lyle, a solicitor from legal services at the Scottish Parliament. I welcome you both to the meeting and, indeed, welcome Mr Simpson back to the committee, even for just a short time, as he convened the committee in the last parliamentary session.
I remind you both that you do not have to press any buttons, as that will be done for you. We will move to questions.
It is quite rare to see an express power to legislatively sub-delegate in a bill. The committee is keenly interested in that, as it has the potential to erode democratic accountability. It is one thing to give Scottish ministers the power to make regulations, but it is another to give Scottish ministers the power to award that power to a third party.
With that in mind, it would be helpful if you could provide the committee with further context to that proposal in the bill. Is there a precedent that served as a model for section 21 of the bill?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Stuart McMillan
No problem.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Stuart McMillan
As there are no further questions, I thank Mr Simpson and Ms Lyle for their evidence this morning. The committee might follow-up in writing if additional questions stem from this morning’s session. Thank you once again.
That concludes the public part of the meeting.
10:29 Meeting continued in private until 11:06.Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Scottish National Investment Bank”
Meeting date: 28 May 2025
Stuart McMillan
I just want to echo the comments of the deputy convener, and note that bullet point 2 in paragraph 20 of the report says:
“Overall positivity about the Bank increased from 68 per cent to 83 per cent.”
Furthermore, paragraph 27 says that the bank
“demonstrates a culture of continuous improvement”;
paragraph 72 talks about its “sound oversight arrangements”; paragraph 89 mentions
“improvements in ... content and presentation”;
and there are other paragraphs in the report that say that the organisation appears to be doing well on governance.
I come back to a point made by my colleague Colin Beattie. I note that paragraphs 21 and 47 are about the issue of risk, and it strikes me that the organisation is very cautious, notwithstanding the financial straitjacket that it has to work within. It appears that it is focused on risk, that it is trying to provide certainty for business investment and that it is not prepared to go out on a limb. Is that an accurate assessment?
