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 691 contributions
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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Council Tax
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Alexander Stewart
Professor Heald, you have talked about some of the other locations where that very thing has happened. The whole process of consultation and getting consensus will be vital in achieving that single reform, if that is what we are trying to find.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Council Tax
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Alexander Stewart
My initial questions are for David Phillips. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that advances in technology and computing make it cheaper, more relevant and easier for properties to potentially be revalued. It would be useful to hear your views on what the techniques are and on whether and where they have been successful, as well as to get an idea of the potential cost of it all and of who would be likely to pay for it.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Review of the EU-UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement
Meeting date: 6 February 2025
Alexander Stewart
I have a question for Ms Bevan. The Taith programme has done extremely well, as you have indicated and as we have heard from others. Is that because there has been real outreach and engagement and because the programme has been adapted to fit some of the criteria that you looked at with others? What support mechanism is provided? It certainly appears that the programme is successful because there is the impetus to improve, capture things, provide support, encourage and adapt.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Review of the EU-UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement
Meeting date: 6 February 2025
Alexander Stewart
Professor Cardwell, you touched on the experiences of students going back and forward and the ease that there was in managing that. What are now the obstacles—if there are any—to engaging and progressing, to ensure that we have that seamless task between academia and individuals who are seeking to go to Ireland, France or wherever it might be?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Review of the EU-UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement
Meeting date: 6 February 2025
Alexander Stewart
Mr Brown, you talked about the academic exchanges that are taking place, but I want to ask about business and commerce. In the past, there was a reasonable level of exchange going on between apprenticeships in organisations and businesses. Has that completely stopped or are there opportunities to ensure that a sector or a business that is looking to exchange individuals has the opportunity to do so? How is that progressing? It was relatively successful in the past, and I would like to hear your view on where you think it currently is.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Review of the EU-UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement
Meeting date: 6 February 2025
Alexander Stewart
Let us look forward to what we want to achieve in your sector, to ensure that there is progress. We have heard about the new relationship that the new UK Government wants to have with the EU: it has been called a “resetting”—words of that nature have been used. Are there areas in which you see some glimmers of hope that there may be progress? Are the discussions still just rhetoric or are there real opportunities for the future?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Review of the EU-UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement
Meeting date: 6 February 2025
Alexander Stewart
I want to look at where we are now with the Turing scheme. This morning, we have heard that there are some limitations in relation to the funding for the three-year period. Are any other limitations being experienced? Is the Turing scheme working in a slightly different way from what we have experienced in the past? What lessons have been learned from that process?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
“Local government in Scotland: Financial bulletin 2023/24”
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Alexander Stewart
My final question is about customer and client receipts. In the bulletin, you talk about them being 12 per cent—£253 million—lower in real terms than they were before the pandemic. Is there a reason why that is the case, or do councils have the opportunity to raise income by putting up some of their charges? Has it got to the stage that charges are getting too high? Is there still some room for that to be managed in a way that would get us back to the pre-pandemic position? Alternatively, is it the case that those days have gone, and the councils feel that they can go only so far, because they know that going further might end up having diminishing returns for them, as putting up charges might, at the end of the day, cost them money rather than bringing in income?
At the same time, councils have to consider what receipts they can deal with and the areas in which they can afford to do so, because that is another income stream that would have a knock-on effect in other areas. It would be good to get a flavour of what you think about those issues.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
“Local government in Scotland: Financial bulletin 2023/24”
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Alexander Stewart
Good morning. You have already touched on the situation in which councils find themselves with reserves. Your bulletin talks about a 5 per cent decrease in councils’ total usable reserves. Reserves have been used to balance the books in the past, but was 2023-24 a tipping point in reserve trends for many councils? Are any councils in a concerning situation in which they have low levels of reserves or have exhausted the majority of their reserves? How will they manage to sustain things?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
“Local government in Scotland: Financial bulletin 2023/24”
Meeting date: 4 February 2025
Alexander Stewart
You have touched on councils’ ability to do short-term and medium-term financial planning, but there is an issue with long-term financial planning. You have indicated that about half the councils in Scotland do not have long-term financial planning in place. Not being able to foresee what the future holds must be a problem for them—it is very difficult, but they need a flavour of where things are going. How are you encouraging councils to do long-term planning? What would you like councils to do to ensure that they take on board your concerns and attempt—even if it is just an attempt—to get long-term financial planning in place? That might help if anything problematic comes up, because it could be managed. However, if they do not do that planning, they will not be aware of what could happen in the long term.
