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 1513 contributions
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Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Section 22 Report: “The 2024/25 audit of Historic Environment Scotland”
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Joe FitzPatrick
So, it is mostly new members.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Section 22 Report: “The 2024/25 audit of Historic Environment Scotland”
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Joe FitzPatrick
It is about getting that confidence, and one thing that is helpful for that is transparency. Are the board papers now being published? Are the minutes being published?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Section 22 Report: “The 2024/25 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”, and “Financial sustainability and taxes”
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Joe FitzPatrick
I am slightly concerned about the line of questioning. Government ministers produce budgets, but the Parliament made a decision way back, when the idea of Social Security Scotland was first raised, that we wanted a social security system that was based on fairness and values, and that respected people as individuals. At that point, when the legislation was going through the Parliament, the decision was made that Social Security Scotland would be how we ensured that people who required benefits, particularly disability benefit, would be able to get them. Do you think that we are managing to achieve that aspiration and ensure that folk who require the disability benefit are able to get it, and that there might well be a gap in that respect, because, in the rest of the UK, people are not able to get the benefits that they require?
10:15
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Section 22 Report: “The 2024/25 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”, and “Financial sustainability and taxes”
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Joe FitzPatrick
One of the challenges that we face, which I think the Scottish ministers have recognised, is the risk of behavioural change as we change tax levels in Scotland. We need to be mindful of that risk, and the Government has said likewise.
We are keen to understand what work is being done, so that the Government can understand what behavioural change is happening and what the risks are in that regard. Are more tools being developed to finesse the Government’s understanding as the tax policies in Scotland and the rest of the UK diverge?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Section 22 Report: “The 2024/25 audit of Historic Environment Scotland”
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Joe FitzPatrick
It seems strange that a decision of such significance was able to be made without the approval of the board. Can the executive team still operate without the approval of the board at that level?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Section 22 Report: “The 2024/25 audit of Historic Environment Scotland”
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Joe FitzPatrick
That is appreciated. However, from my perspective, and perhaps that of my colleagues, a large number of board members were not exercising their roles in the way that we would have hoped. Has there been additional training? Since you have come in and appointed two new members, have you made sure that the rest of the members of the board understand their responsibilities?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Section 22 Report: “The 2024/25 audit of Historic Environment Scotland”
Meeting date: 4 February 2026
Joe FitzPatrick
That is appreciated. It is helpful, and it will give more confidence to the organisation going forward and help it to be successful, which is what we all want. Thanks very much.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Joe FitzPatrick
I have a quick question about proxy voting. You probably heard the witnesses from COSLA, who were on the first panel, complaining that there was a lack of consultation on the proposals for proxy voting and saying that they were concerned that proxies would not be suitably experienced and trained. The witnesses on our second panel said that people with lived experience would expect their proxies to be suitably trained. First, can you address the consultation issue and, secondly, can you say whether there will be national guidance around what training and experience would be required for proxies?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Joe FitzPatrick
I will ask about proxies later, but first, looking at this from the perspective of those with lived experience, including third sector partners, it is clear that there are some integration boards where the experience of carers and third sector members of the board is really positive. They feel engaged and they feel involved. However, we know that that is not the case everywhere; in fact, that is the exception. In other integration boards, folk with lived experience feel that, because they are not voting members, they are not valued in the same way as the voting members. That is the problem. Without this legislation, how can we get to the point where, right across Scotland, those people with lived experience, including third sector partners, can feel that they are genuinely part of the decision-making processes that affect their lives so much?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 3 February 2026
Joe FitzPatrick
I want to focus on proxy voting. Matt Crilly has covered a bit already, but Paul Kelly and Stephen Smellie, do you want to say anything about your concerns on the proxy voting provisions?
