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 488 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 8 January 2025
Maurice Golden
I am concerned that the situation at Dundee university could be the tip of the iceberg and that our university sector could be in a financial bubble. I welcome your comments, Mr Dey, but, in principle, in order to mitigate that scenario, would the Scottish Government provide a bailout for individual institutions? If it did, what would be the criteria?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 8 January 2025
Maurice Golden
Yes—in general.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Maurice Golden
I think that we should close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that the Scottish advisory group on relationships and behaviour in schools, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Scottish Government have published a joint action plan on relationships and behaviour in schools, which covers the period from 2024 up to 2027.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Maurice Golden
I agree with Mr Torrance and Mr Ewing. I am concerned about the cumulative effect of such schemes, of which there are a number. In that regard, I have two suggestions to make. One is that we need to understand the context. Globally—whether in relation to the Hoover dam in the USA, the three gorges dam in China or the Gabcíkovo-Nagymaros dam between Hungary and Slovakia—there is a massive body of evidence on the environmental impact of dam building. If a particular pump storage scheme is looked at in isolation, that might lead to unintended consequences in the long term. Academia—I am thinking, in particular, of the UNESCO centre for water law, policy and science, which is based at the University of Dundee—might be where we should go to look at the wider context.
Secondly, we need to get an understanding from the Scottish Government of whether the planning system can adequately cope with and assess the cumulative impact of a number of such schemes.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Maurice Golden
Thank you for that. From the evidence that we have received, it appears that part of the issue is that there are no discernible benefits relating specifically to a national park. That applies even to some of the aspects that you have mentioned, such as dementia centres—Kirrie Connections, for example, is not in a national park area. There are also bike trails all over Scotland that are not the direct result of a national park. What, in your view, are the benefits that can be gleaned only via a national park?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Maurice Golden
Would you envisage a Galloway national park as having some of the facets that the other national parks have, such as Aviemore and Loch Lomond Shores?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Maurice Golden
I have a few. First, given the Scottish Government’s policy of compliance with current European Union legislation, I would like to clarify whether its policy is compliant with the EU floods directive and water framework directive.
I find the response from the Scottish Government incredibly disappointing. It just about strategies and working groups. I do not know Speyside well but, in Angus, 60 homes are being demolished as a result of inadequate flood defences. Planning was consented for homes, which led to flooding last year and, a year on, there has been no action whatsoever. As we heard from the Scottish Government, no one is responsible for providing leadership over riparian basin management, so I would appreciate hearing the Scottish Government’s views on a single body being appointed to be responsible in that regard.
In Scotland, local authorities are taking one view in respect of planning. SEPA is notionally in charge of flood management plans but is not able to implement them if there is disagreement with other interested parties. There is a lack of foresight over flood basin management with landowners and food producers and there are consultations with people who feel that their voices are not heard.
Leadership is necessary. It does not matter whether it is SEPA or another body, but the people of Scotland deserve to know who and which organisation is responsible. If it is the Scottish Government, that is great. If it is SEPA, that is fine, but we need to know who manages our flood risk management approach and, as the petitioner seeks to do, consider whether that approach is correct. However, we do not know who is responsible at the moment. There may be some other points, convener.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Maurice Golden
NFU Scotland has raised concerns about existing national parks, and we have so far been unable to get any evidence to assuage those concerns. Is there anything that you could provide to NFUS in that respect today?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Maurice Golden
The Scottish Government has said that any
“new National Parks should be designated in response to local community demand.”
What level of local buy-in do you consider necessary for a designation in order to progress?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Maurice Golden
There is a genuine difficulty for local communities in Galloway regarding the difference between the principle and the blueprint—you made a point about that. In Angus, if you were to ask the people of Forfar whether they want a train line from Forfar to Dundee, most of them would say yes. However, when we consider the costs of it, the elevation and the alternatives, people might come to a different point of view.
NatureScot has said:
“We do not know what the proposed national park in Galloway would look like”.—[Official Report, Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, 13 November 2024; c 7.]
How, then, is it possible for local communities to make a decision on whether they want one?
