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 692 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
Well, the minister who took the legislation forward was a junior minister under both you and Ms Cunningham.
You are quite right that the amendment that dealt with the issue was lodged at stage 3 of that bill, so the Scottish Government was not able to undertake a business and regulatory impact assessment, for example, as we normally would. However, as I said in my opening remarks, as the minister who is now responsible I am always open to monitoring the impact of legislation and, equally, to hearing concerns about its effect.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
I accept that the normal assessment could not be undertaken because of time. I accept that point. I do not accept that the falconry community could not have been heard because—as you know—when you take legislation through as a minister, you have an open door.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
The licence is about control and protecting young timber and agricultural land. It is about conserving natural habitats. That brings me back to the point that I made at the beginning, which is that, owing to the conservation status of the mountain hare, it has been viewed by Parliament and the public as not appropriate—
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
Please let me finish the point. It is not appropriate to be taking mountain hares for sporting purposes.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
I will turn to my colleague Hugh Dignon in a second. The correction that I will make to that point is to say that not all falcons could or would take a mountain hare. Only an eagle would.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
No, that is the responsibility of the falconer.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
I will pass over to NatureScot to answer on whether that is small number of licenses, given that the legislation has been in force for only a short period.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
It depends on the context. The legislation has been in force only since March 2021 and the division of licences reflects the discussion that we had about the fact that mountain hares are far more frequently taken by shooting than by birds of prey. That is just a reflection of the state of play.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
I am not sure that that is the case. I think that they can take off in other areas of the country. Obviously, a trained falconer would know a great deal more about that than I or we do, but we say that the quarry that is being pursued is the principal factor that differentiates upland falconry from other types, although there are other variables. Stan, do you want to come in?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
That is a policy question, to be fair. We act on the basis of advice that NatureScot gives us on the conservation status of and risk to animals, but it is for us to make the decisions. I absolutely accept that there is a marked difference in the numbers that are taken by shooting mountain hare and those that are taken through falconry. However, I come back to the core point, which is that our statutory advisers, NatureScot, are telling us, in a nature emergency, that there is a conservation risk to mountain hare. We have to be prepared to take action in the face of that. That action has to be proportionate but, equally, consistent.
Again, I acknowledge the concerns of the petitioner, and everything that the committee has said, but, equally, I ask how we could justify action that restricted people’s ability to take an animal for recreational purposes by shooting but did not apply similar conditions on those who would take it by other means. It is about consistency.
As I have said, for example, throughout the current consideration of the Hunting With Dogs (Scotland) Bill, we are grappling with those questions of consistency in all the ways that people seek to hunt with dogs in the countryside. We have to have a consistent approach.
