What is the Scotfact MCP?


A remote MCP server at https://mcp.scotfact.com that gives Claude two things:


1. The Holyrood Official Report — every speech and contribution made in the Scottish Parliament chamber since 1999, refreshed daily.

2. Scottish economic and fiscal dataset* — GERS, QNAS, ONS Pink Book, ONS UK GDP, Export Statistics Scotland, oil and gas revenue, and the Scottish Budget — all sourced from the underlying official publications and exposed as queryable data.


The server is free, public, and read-only. There's no account to create and no API key to manage. You will need to authenticate using a google or Microsoft ( more social integrations for auth coming soon)  account to access, but Scotfact does not process the authentication.



Scotfact MCP — setup guide for Claude users


This guide walks through connecting the Scotfact MCP server to Claude so you can ask Claude questions like *"what did Nicola Sturgeon last say about an independence referendum?"* or *"how has Scotland's deficit as a share of GDP changed since 2010?"* and have Claude pull the answers straight from the Holyrood Official Report and the Scottish Government's published statistics.


Before you start


You'll need:


- A Claude account on a plan that supports custom connectors. As of this writing that includes Free (limited to one custom connector), Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise.

- About two minutes.


A note on plans: on Team and Enterprise plans, only an Owner or Primary Owner can add a new custom connector to the organisation. Once it's added, individual members can enable it in their own conversations. If you're on Pro or Max, you add it to your own account directly.


Setup — claude.ai (web)


  1. Go to **Settings → Connectors** (or click the **+** button next to "Connectors" if you see it in the sidebar).
  2. Click **Add custom connector**.
  3. Enter:   **Name:** `Scotfact` (or anything you like — this is just the label Claude shows you) and **URL:** `https://mcp.scotfact.com`
  4. Leave the advanced OAuth fields blank — Scotfact doesn't require static authentication  ids.
  5. Click **Add**.


That's it. The connector should show as connected, and you'll see the Scotfact tools available in your next conversation.


 Setup — Claude Desktop and the mobile apps


Custom connectors are configured once in your Claude account and then available everywhere — Claude Desktop, the iOS and Android apps, and Cowork all pick up the same connector list. You don't need to install anything separately on each device.


If you've already added Scotfact via claude.ai (above), it'll appear automatically in Claude Desktop and the mobile apps next time you sign in.


No `authorization_token` is needed — Scotfact is open.


Enabling Scotfact in a conversation


By default, custom connectors are available but not always actively in use in every conversation.


On claude.ai and the mobile apps, click the **+** button at the bottom-left of the chat input, choose **Connectors**, and toggle Scotfact on for that conversation. You only need to do this once per conversation.



Verifying it works


Try one of these prompts in a conversation where Scotfact is enabled:


- *"What did Nicola Sturgeon last say about an independence referendum?"*

- *"What was the most recent vote in the Scottish Parliament?"*

- *"How does Scotland's revenue per head compare to the UK over the last ten years?"*

- *"What's in the GERS dataset?"*


Claude will call Scotfact's tools and answer with figures and quotes drawn directly from the source. Citations appear inline as links back to the relevant page on `apps.scotfact.com` or `scotfact.com`, so you can verify any quote or figure against the published view.


What you can ask


The server exposes two completely separate worlds:


Holyrood (the Parliament side)


  • "What did [MSP] say about [topic]?"
  • "Find SNP/Labour/Conservative speeches mentioning [topic]"
  • "Summarise the most recent [Budget / FMQs / Statement] debate"
  • "What were the last 10 votes and how did they go?"
  • "Has [MSP] spoken in the chamber recently?"


Datasets (the statistics side)


  •  "What does Scotland spend on [Health / Education / Defence / etc.]?"
  • "What's Scotland's deficit / fiscal balance / revenue / GDP over time?"
  • "How do Scotland's exports break down by destination and sector?"
  • "How has [tax type] revenue changed?"
  • "What's in the most recent Scottish Budget?"


The two don't talk to each other automatically — for cross-cutting questions like *"summarise the Stage 3 budget debate and compare the figures being argued over against GERS"*, just ask Claude to do both and it'll combine them.


Troubleshooting


  • The connector won't add or shows as failed. Custom connectors are reached from Anthropic's cloud infrastructure, not from your machine, so a corporate firewall or VPN on your end shouldn't matter. If `https://mcp.scotfact.com` is genuinely unreachable from the public internet at that moment, wait a couple of minutes and retry, or check the Scotfact site for status.
  • Claude isn't using Scotfact even though it's connected. Check the **+** menu in the chat input and confirm Scotfact is toggled on for that conversation. Also try being more explicit in the prompt — *"using Scotfact, …"* nudges Claude toward the connector.
  • Claude says it can't find a person or topic. Names in the Holyrood index are stored as "Surname, Forename". If a search comes back empty, ask Claude to look up the speaker first — it'll find the canonical form and retry.
  • Claude returns committee evidence sessions when you wanted a chamber debate  (or vice versa). The Holyrood corpus includes both. If you're after the chamber Stage 3 Budget debate specifically, ask for *"the Budget Bill stage 3 debate in the chamber"* — Claude will narrow accordingly.
  • Results feel stale. The Holyrood corpus is refreshed daily, and the datasets are refreshed when the underlying official publications are updated (annually for GERS, quarterly for QNAS, etc.). If you're asking about something that happened this morning, it may not yet be in the data.


Privacy and data handling


Scotfact serves only public information — Hansard-equivalent parliamentary speeches and published Scottish Government / ONS / HMRC statistics. There is no user account, no login, and no personal data collected by the server. Your prompts to Claude are subject to Anthropic's privacy policy as normal; Scotfact only sees the queries Claude itself constructs (e.g. *"search Holyrood for Sturgeon contributions about referendum"*).


Custom connectors are unverified by Anthropic by definition — that's a generic warning Claude will show you when adding any custom connector, not specific to Scotfact.


Removing the connector


  • On claude.ai:** Settings → Connectors → find Scotfact → **Remove**.
  • On Claude Code:** `claude mcp remove scotfact`.


That's all there is to it. The data does the rest.


---


*Scotfact is an independent project that aggregates official Scottish economic data and parliamentary records. It is not affiliated with the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament, or any political party.*