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 824 contributions
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Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Neurodivergence
Meeting date: 17 February 2026
Dr Pam Gosal MBE
Would our witnesses from COPFS and the SPS like to comment?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Neurodivergence
Meeting date: 17 February 2026
Dr Pam Gosal MBE
Employment is the best solution to poverty, but only 29 per cent of autistic people are employed. That compares with a figure of more than 80 per cent for the general population. Unfortunately, many employers do not have sufficient understanding of what it means to be neurodivergent, which leads to poor workplace experiences and, sometimes, discrimination against neurodivergent staff. How are you working with employers to combat that stigma?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Neurodivergence
Meeting date: 17 February 2026
Dr Pam Gosal MBE
There is often a postcode lottery when it comes to providing support for neurodivergent people in education, employment and the criminal justice system, which we heard about from witnesses earlier. There is a big divide between urban and rural areas, but where else do you see regional differences in support for neurodivergent people, and what do you think creates those differences?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Neurodivergence
Meeting date: 17 February 2026
Dr Pam Gosal MBE
Rob Holland, you mentioned criminal justice. I do not know whether you were listening earlier when I asked about the importance of data collection, whether in education, employment or criminal justice. My question was about the domestic abuse data that Police Scotland collects. A few areas are missing, but the one that I spoke about was disability data. After speaking to many organisations and victims, my belief is that, if you are not collecting the right data, you cannot provide the support to people who have a disability or a support need. We should not have another postcode lottery where people fall between the gaps, things are passed on and nobody knows that a person needs support. How important is data collection from the beginning?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Neurodivergence
Meeting date: 17 February 2026
Dr Pam Gosal MBE
I thank Superintendent Gallie for that information.
I have one more question, for Laura Buchan. As you mentioned earlier, information is passed to COPFS from the police. What does that information look like? Is it quantitative or qualitative information? How do you find out whether a person needs that extra bit of help?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee [Draft]
Neurodivergence
Meeting date: 17 February 2026
Dr Pam Gosal MBE
In response to one of my questions last week, the committee was told that a change in culture is necessary to better understand the needs of neurodivergent people. What are your thoughts on that, especially when it comes to the criminal justice system?
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Jury Trials
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Dr Pam Gosal MBE
At the meeting that I mentioned, DCS Sarah Taylor said that the bill is “groundbreaking” as it will give you more information about the perpetrator than you currently get. What is your view on that?
: At the meeting that I mentioned, DCS Sarah Taylor said that the bill is “groundbreaking” as it will give you more information about the perpetrator than you currently get. What is your view on that?
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Jury Trials
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Dr Pam Gosal MBE
Thank you.
: Thank you.
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Jury Trials
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Dr Pam Gosal MBE
I have a couple of questions. The first is for Adam Brown.
: I have a couple of questions. The first is for Adam Brown.
At our meeting in August, you indicated that you wanted to provide evidence to the Criminal Justice Committee, so it is good to see you here—thank you for coming. I recall that, in that meeting, your colleague DCS Sarah Taylor said that the bill would be “groundbreaking”. She also mentioned that having details in the register such as the perpetrator’s address at the time of the offence would be helpful, especially when the police have to go out looking for the perpetrator. There is a lot of information that you do not have currently, and having such information in the register would help with that issue. Similarly, the Scottish Police Federation signalled that it supports the bill, if it is provided with proper resources.
Domestic abuse costs the public sector billions of pounds each year, and the police have been underfunded by the Scottish Government for years. Therefore, do you agree with the Scottish Police Federation when it says that, with proper resources, the bill could work? Given your expertise, how do you think that we can make the bill work and bring down bureaucracy through amendments at stage 2?
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Jury Trials
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Dr Pam Gosal MBE
I have some questions for the other witnesses—thank you all for responding to the call for views and coming here today. It is interesting to listen to the feedback, as it helps us to make better legislation.
: I have some questions for the other witnesses—thank you all for responding to the call for views and coming here today. It is interesting to listen to the feedback, as it helps us to make better legislation.
While putting the bill together, I consulted many survivors who believe that the current system is not working and that perpetrators are simply let out with a slap on the wrist and are allowed to reoffend. We know how high reoffending is: the statistics show that it occurs in more than half of reported cases. Domestic abuse cost the public purse £7.5 billion in a three-year period, while the estimated cost of the bill is around £23 million, which is less than 0.5 per cent of the justice budget. Do you not believe that, in the long term, the bill could help to save money? What changes would you like to see made at stage 2?
