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 197 contributions
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2024
Neil Bibby
I want to ask about Glasgow specifically. We have fantastic cultural assets in Scotland. It was fantastic to visit the V&A in Dundee over the summer, and we have many great museums and galleries across the country.
We are talking about the squeeze on cultural funding nationally, and it is clear that it affects everybody. There is also a squeeze on local authority budgets, which everyone feels. Is Glasgow, with the Kelvingrove museum and other assets that are in many ways national assets but not regarded as national assets, particularly struggling? I accept that every local authority is struggling at the moment, but are there extra additional pressures in Glasgow because of that potential double whammy?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2024
Neil Bibby
On supporting businesses and providing guidance to them, is the Scottish Government considering more direct intervention measures, such as the establishment of a dedicated advisory board or a helpline for exporters? We have heard some suggestions about that in evidence sessions. We have talked about supporting small business and we heard that the Scottish Government is doing everything that it can. Is the Scottish Government considering other measures? What more can it do to help businesses to navigate the new trading regime?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2024
Neil Bibby
Good morning, cabinet secretary. I want to go back to the issue of guidance and support for businesses as they navigate new trading arrangements and, indeed, the whole issue of trading. You have said on a number of occasions that the Scottish Government is doing everything that it can, but how is it evaluating whether it is doing that? You mentioned support from Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Development International and Scotland house in Brussels, but how is the Scottish Government evaluating the effectiveness of its support for small businesses so that it can back up its claim that it is doing everything that it can? What future changes will be made on the back of any such evaluation?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2024
Neil Bibby
I think that the point about support for small businesses to navigate the trade arrangements is very pertinent to this evidence-taking session.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 6 June 2024
Neil Bibby
Good morning. I want to ask a general question. We have talked about the importance of the UK-EU relationship and of the improvement in the relationship. The secretariat for the UK domestic advisory group is provided by the UK Government. How do you think that that set-up performs in terms of the relationships with all four nations? Here in the Scottish Parliament, we scrutinise matters from a Scottish perspective, but Wales, Northern Ireland and England make up the rest of the United Kingdom. From each of your perspectives, how do you feel that the current arrangement takes into account issues from each of the devolved nations in the UK?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 6 June 2024
Neil Bibby
Good morning. We have talked a lot about youth mobility but, as the convener mentioned at the outset, the DAG’s recent report highlights the importance of mobility for artists and technical support staff through a cultural worker visa. That will obviously affect a lot of young people, but it will affect people of all ages, too. How has that recommendation been received, and how likely is it to progress?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 6 June 2024
Neil Bibby
Clearly, in negotiating such a complex agreement as the TCA, people will want to look at the detail of specific issues but also to look at it in the round. I imagine that it is particularly challenging to look at the details while also looking at things in the round.
I have a question that follows on from our previous discussion with the DAG about the Law Society of Scotland. I understand that the DAG has representation from England and Wales via the Law Society and the Bar Council, but that the Law Society of Scotland is not a specific member of the DAG. Irene, I know that you were hoping that that would be addressed. Is there any update on that? Clearly, if there are legal ramifications for the devolved nations and, in particular, Scotland, it would be advantageous to have input from the Law Society of Scotland.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 6 June 2024
Neil Bibby
I do not know whether anyone else has any further thoughts on that. Perhaps Luísa Santos or Léa Auffret could say more from their perspectives.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2024
Neil Bibby
Good morning, panel members.
We have heard that Creative Scotland’s letter to the committee and its wider statements to the media suggested that it believed that no non-simulated sexual activity was to take place as part of the project.
However, we just heard from Alexander Stewart about genital contact being mentioned in the application, and from the convener about STI checks being part of the application.
There is mention in the application of “a sex party” and two sexual acts beginning with the letter F, and it states that people who work on the project will have “experience ... in ... pornography”.
As you said earlier, it was suggested in the R and D phase that there would be non-simulated sex. Is that correct? Was that, and were all the things that we have just mentioned, in the application?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2024
Neil Bibby
Mr Wilson?