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 1099 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Daniel Johnson
That argument has a lot of merit and is compelling. The key question is whether it would be more appropriate for that level of detail to be in the guidance, because I would not want to introduce complexity or difficulties when that might not be possible—for example, it might not be possible to reach a parent before the end of the school day if they do not pick up their phone. I have a small hesitation in saying that it would be appropriate for that to be in the bill but, as a matter of practice, what you have set out is absolutely how things should be done.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Daniel Johnson
That is as the funder. The Government is looking at whether it would report on that as a subset of the information, so that we do not end up with confusing data. That would be done for the reason that you set out: such institutions have a very different relationship with local authorities, full stop. Local authorities use institutions such as the one that you mentioned as providers of education, rather than local authorities sitting as regulators of such institutions as providers of education, if that makes sense.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Daniel Johnson
Yes.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Daniel Johnson
The relationship is different, but I think that most of those schools engage with their local education authority.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Daniel Johnson
I will bring in Roz Thomson to cover the methodology of the bill’s financial memorandum in more detail. I have met the Scottish Government about every six months during the bill process. There has been an extensive level of engagement. It was important for the Government to be aware of the bill, especially given its concurrence with the issuing of its guidance.
Critically, as I said directly to the cabinet secretary, it was really important to me that the bill did not contain any surprises for the Government; that is the approach that I have sought to take. As I understand it, the Government broadly agrees with the numbers that are set out in the financial memorandum. The costs are not overly significant. Mr Kidd is absolutely correct to say that the measures do not add up to nothing. There will be costs of around £3 million in year 1, with similar on-going costs each year, which is not the biggest amount of money in the context of the education budget.
Let us also be clear that we have guidance and that all actors say that the guidance is being complied with. I do not envisage a requirement for any huge alterations to the guidance. There will be a need to revise and reissue the guidance, and there will be some additional implementation costs, but we are taking at face value the assurance from both providers and the Government that there is already compliance.
Roz, do you want to provide some clarity about the more detailed elements of the methodology?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Daniel Johnson
I am very glad that it is being as supportive as it is now.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Daniel Johnson
Yes. There was discussion from both directions, to be candid. The Government had considered whether there were ways for it to incorporate the provisions in my bill within other legislation.
On many of the points that have been asked about—especially with regard to Willie Rennie’s question about the GTCS, as well as on some broader points—I feel that the bill might have been better progressed as a Government bill, in some ways, as part of a more comprehensive package. I had been very open to the Government taking it off my hands, so to speak, and taking its provisions forward in other legislation.
The legislative programme has become more congested as we have gone through the session, as we are all aware, but that was part of the discussions. There would have been merit in the bill becoming a Government bill. I also think that there is merit in it being a member’s bill, because it is a way of ensuring that we are keeping pace.
I will try to explain my previous “politician’s answer”. The Government has fundamentally been of the view that there needs to be guidance and clarity in this area—frankly, the guidance needs to improve. The Government had been wary of confronting some of the things that have been described, from the voices that we have heard, and it had therefore been ambiguous as to whether it wanted to put the guidance on a statutory footing, but that had been part of the dialogue throughout the period that I outlined in my introductory remarks.
I hope that that provides some context about the dialogue, and as to whether I think that the proposals could and should be dealt with through a member’s bill or through a Government bill.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Daniel Johnson
Yes.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Daniel Johnson
I just want to thank the committee. I hope that I have provided all the answers that you need, but please come back to me if you require any further clarification. Above all else, I want to repeat what I said at the beginning: thank you very much for taking this time—I know that the committee is very busy. This has been a pretty extended endeavour for me, so I appreciate members taking the time and effort to look at my bill.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Daniel Johnson
Apologies for that.
