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 1877 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Great British Energy Bill
Meeting date: 7 January 2025
Bob Doris
I just want to check something. Clause 5(3) of the bill says:
“The Secretary of State must lay a copy of the statement, and of any revised or replacement statement, before Parliament.”
That got me thinking about whether we could get agreement from the UK Government about the current set of strategic priorities. The Scottish Government has to agree to those priorities as they relate to devolved matters. However, the deputy convener talked about an evolving situation. In 18 months’ time, or in two or three years’ time, the UK Government may reset its strategic priorities. Is it the Scottish Government’s position that this is not a one-off consenting process for strategic priorities but that, under clause 5, it is an on-going process?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Bob Doris
So, it could be a joint space.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Bob Doris
Do not worry—I will not be soliciting you to consider any further remit for the SFC in my next question.
It would be helpful to get some information on the record from you. The committee will have to return to scrutinising the Scottish Government’s efforts to mitigate the two-child cap. We do not underestimate the challenge for you in ensuring that you have all the relevant information to project what the costs of that might be—not just in the short term but in the longer term. I will not list off potential factors from my notes, but it would be helpful if Professor Roy could say what those various factors and any related challenges might be. That would give us a steer for future scrutiny of the matter.
10:30Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Bob Doris
I do not want to ask too much more, given that a lot more information will be put into the public domain on 7 January, which is not very far away. However, I saw in my notes that there could be a potential implication in relation to the benefits cap. The Scottish Government mitigates the UK benefits cap in some respects—in relation to discretionary housing payments, for example—and it tries to avoid clawback on that. Is that another cost factor that might have to be taken into account? If the DWP claws money back because of that mitigation, that would have to be projected into the overall cost for us, which could be even higher.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Bob Doris
You will be glad to hear that this is not related to the evidence session. I would like to put something on the record. I have given the convener advance warning.
On 31 October, I suggested that Mr Balfour had questioned in the Scottish Parliament why we were building Scotland’s social security system and that he had said that it might be cheaper to simply run it from Westminster. I suggested that that was Mr Balfour’s consistent position. Mr Balfour quite forcefully disagreed, and I offered to apologise if I had misrepresented his parliamentary contributions. You will have guessed what is coming next, convener. Having checked the Official Report, I cannot find the position that I characterised in Mr Balfour’s parliamentary contributions. I can find that only in a blog that was written outwith the Parliament.
I therefore apologise for inaccurately representing Mr Balfour’s stated position in his contributions to the Scottish Parliament. I am disappointed that he is not here as I put that on the record, but I will reach out to him personally.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Bob Doris
Good morning. I am really interested in this line of questioning. The demand-led spend that any Government makes is potentially open-ended for the longer term and must be a risk. It is right for the Fiscal Commission to step away from the policy decisions on that, but to map out the financial exposure of the public purse.
That is helpful because, for example, we can see that the mitigation of the bedroom tax is now baked into Scottish Government spend for the longer term and, soon, winter heating mitigation will also be baked in. We look forward to your statistics on the two-child cap, which will soon be baked into future spending, as well.
On the issue of a risk register for Scottish finances, does the Scottish Fiscal Commission take a longer-term look? There are fiscal framework implications in terms of policy spillover from the next steps that a UK Government might take in relation to its spending decisions. There has been a lot of rhetoric and comment about the cost of disability payments in England and the rest of the UK, and the UK Government is wrestling with that. There is quite a lively debate about how much it is possible to humanely squeeze those payments to get lower expenditure in England, and about whether that is appropriate, policy-wise. I would say that it is not, but that is not the point.
The point is that, if the UK Government goes down one road in the rest of the UK and—rightly or wrongly—gets many people off of disability payments, the policy spillover will have a direct financial consequence for the Scottish budget because we will receive less in block grant adjustments. Does the Scottish Fiscal Commission map out the implications of UK Government policy and draw to the Scottish Government’s attention future potential implications for the Scottish budget, be they in relation to disability payments or anything else that a UK Government might wish to do?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Bob Doris
Briefly, should that be in your remit, Professor Roy? The Scottish Government works up the numbers. Others might say, “Well, it would work them up—it’s marking its own homework, so perhaps the Fiscal Commission should be doing that.” Should it be in your remit?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Bob Doris
It might not matter in those terms, in relation to what you say about the aggregate position of the Scottish finances, but it certainly matters in our scrutiny role here, when we are trying to work out the long-term implications of UK decisions for policy decisions that the Scottish Government makes, as we are trying to do today.
Professor Roy articulated the position very well, but what I am trying to get at is that the winter fuel payment change was like a bolt out of the blue. It would not have been reasonable to have forecast what the risk was in relation to that, because most people did not expect the UK Government to do that. However, there is an expectation that there could be a squeeze on spend on disability payments in the UK.
Does the Scottish Fiscal Commission identify the risks of potential UK policy changes—because those are in the public domain and are being floated, if you like, proactively—then cost some of that and give it to the Scottish Government, or does the Scottish Government say, “Here are three things that have potential policy implications for Scotland—go and cost up our fiscal risk in relation to them”? Does any such proactive work happen, Professor Roy?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Bob Doris
It might not matter in those terms, in relation to what you say about the aggregate position of the Scottish finances, but it certainly matters in our scrutiny role here, when we are trying to work out the long-term implications of UK decisions for policy decisions that the Scottish Government makes, as we are trying to do today.
Professor Roy articulated the position very well, but what I am trying to get at is that the winter fuel payment change was like a bolt out of the blue. It would not have been reasonable to have forecast what the risk was in relation to that, because most people did not expect the UK Government to do that. However, there is an expectation that there could be a squeeze on spend on disability payments in the UK.
Does the Scottish Fiscal Commission identify the risks of potential UK policy changes—because those are in the public domain and are being floated, if you like, proactively—then cost some of that and give it to the Scottish Government, or does the Scottish Government say, “Here are three things that have potential policy implications for Scotland—go and cost up our fiscal risk in relation to them”? Does any such proactive work happen, Professor Roy?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Scottish Fiscal Commission
Meeting date: 19 December 2024
Bob Doris
Good morning. I am really interested in this line of questioning. The demand-led spend that any Government makes is potentially open-ended for the longer term and must be a risk. It is right for the Fiscal Commission to step away from the policy decisions on that, but to map out the financial exposure of the public purse.
That is helpful because, for example, we can see that the mitigation of the bedroom tax is now baked into Scottish Government spend for the longer term and, soon, winter heating mitigation will also be baked in. We look forward to your statistics on the two-child cap, which will soon be baked into future spending, as well.
On the issue of a risk register for Scottish finances, does the Scottish Fiscal Commission take a longer-term look? There are fiscal framework implications in terms of policy spillover from the next steps that a UK Government might take in relation to its spending decisions. There has been a lot of rhetoric and comment about the cost of disability payments in England and the rest of the UK, and the UK Government is wrestling with that. There is quite a lively debate about how much it is possible to humanely squeeze those payments to get lower expenditure in England, and about whether that is appropriate, policy-wise. I would say that it is not, but that is not the point.
The point is that, if the UK Government goes down one road in the rest of the UK and—rightly or wrongly—gets many people off of disability payments, the policy spillover will have a direct financial consequence for the Scottish budget because we will receive less in block grant adjustments. Does the Scottish Fiscal Commission map out the implications of UK Government policy and draw to the Scottish Government’s attention future potential implications for the Scottish budget, be they in relation to disability payments or anything else that a UK Government might wish to do?
