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 3974 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Gillian Martin
It may be helpful for me to mention some of the new things that we are funding in that space. There is a £15 million package of funding for MiAlgae to build its site in the Grangemouth industrial complex, and there is funding for Celtic Renewables as well. We are doing a great deal of work on good practice principles to put things in place that will create more community benefits. A lot of work has been done on that in the space of transition, given the economic shocks that we have faced.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Gillian Martin
It is £70 million—ScotWind capital was £52 million, and ScotWind resource was £18 million, coming to a total of £70 million. In my portfolio, support for offshore wind capital investment, the nature restoration fund and the energy transition fund received £179.9 million of ScotWind capital and £5 million of ScotWind resource, coming to a total of £184.9 million. In the rural affairs, land reform and islands portfolio, there was ScotWind capital of £30.6 million for progress on transformation and reform of the agriculture and food and drink industries, including energy efficiency and improved resilience. In the transport portfolio, there was ScotWind capital of £78.5 million for capital investment for sustainable and active travel programmes and low-carbon programmes.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Gillian Martin
I made the argument that it was right to use ScotWind money for climate action and the associated economic benefits that can come from that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Gillian Martin
Thank you, Fiona.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Gillian Martin
You and I need to take some credit for that—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Gillian Martin
Annual reports will be made, and the next annual report will be in 2027. It is not possible for me to give a date as the next Government is not yet in place, but it will be in 2027. If I have any more granular detail on when the report is planned, I will let the committee know.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Gillian Martin
I understand that you would like to see a breakdown of the taxonomy detail. A lot of the material for the taxonomy is for internal governmental purposes to allow us to make decisions on the budget. However, I confirm that it is not just for my portfolio or for transport or rural affairs, land reform and islands; it is across the Government. For example, it is also applied to health spend—a great deal of work has been done in the health space to reduce the emissions that are associated with health spend.
The taxonomy is at the level of detail that we can provide to the public, but I will not commit to producing any more documents without taking that request away to consider. However, I can provide more detail on how the taxonomy is being used.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Gillian Martin
It will include the emissions impact and the mitigation and reduction options that are implemented and how all that is reflected in the climate change taxonomy. I will write to the committee with the detail of what that will look like so that you know what to expect.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Gillian Martin
The extension means that we will not have a comparable database until a year later, so in this transitional phase, we will continue to rely on conditions that were set out when we were still part of the EU. The EU registrations database is still publicly available and is still the resource for those outside the UK who are looking for information on chemicals. Therefore, the HSE SI will not have a negative impact on alignment, compared with the current situation.
You are right, to a certain extent, that the HSE has asked for flexibility and discretion. For example, the CLP regulation will be implementing an internationally agreed system for classifying hazards, which, I should point out, comes under a United Nations environment programme.
When it comes to requiring flexibility, you know my views, Mark. I would rather that we were still in the EU and part of the EU REACH system. You and I were on the same committee in the previous parliamentary session, when we discussed the concerns that you are bringing up now about any deviation from EU alignment being a very real risk and dependent on the flavour of the UK Government from one session to the next.
The Health and Safety Executive is the regulator, and I expect that it takes its duties on the control of hazards associated with chemicals absolutely seriously. I expect that there would be an intense mirroring of the standards at EU level as much as possible, but, of course, it will be a UK system that is governed by the UK Government of the day.
Environmental non-governmental organisations are right to point to the fact that, with a separate system, we might have a UK Government in the future that does not want to align with the EU. The Scottish Government wants to align as closely as possible with EU regulations and standards.
I am satisfied, as it stands, that the flexibility that the HSE is asking for would be for very particular circumstances, and that it would have to get agreement from all Governments in the UK for any deviation to happen.
My officials might have further information on what has been set out by the HSE.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 10 February 2026
Gillian Martin
It is fair to say that the HSE has not been publishing as much information on this as we would all like. My officials and I have certainly had conversations about that. As you rightly say, we are talking about decades of regulation at EU level having to be unpicked and a system having to be built from scratch in the UK. The HSE is taking time to do that in a way that is robust and with the amount of resource and capacity that is required. Five years ago, we said how much of a task that would be, and that has been borne out by the fact that we now see delays. It is so complex to build a new system at UK level that replicates decades of regulation. It used to be at EU level and all the systems used to lie at EU level, as well.
