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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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Ariane Burgess
There will be a division.
For
Burgess, Ariane (Highlands and Islands) (Green)
Coffey, Willie (Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley) (SNP)
Griffin, Mark (Central Scotland) (Lab)
McLennan, Paul (East Lothian) (SNP)
Whitham, Elena (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) (SNP)
Against
Briggs, Miles (Lothian) (Con)
Fraser, Murdo (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Ariane Burgess
The result of the division is: For 5, Against 2, Abstentions 0.
Motion agreed to,
That the Local Government, Planning and Housing Committee recommends that the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Short-term Lets) Order 2022 be approved.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Ariane Burgess
The question is, that motion S6M-02264 be agreed to. Are we all agreed?
Members: No.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Ariane Burgess
There will be a division.
For
Burgess, Ariane (Highlands and Islands) (Green)
Coffey, Willie (Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley) (SNP)
Griffin, Mark (Central Scotland) (Lab)
McLennan, Paul (East Lothian) (SNP)
Whitham, Elena (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) (SNP)
Against
Briggs, Miles (Lothian) (Con)
Fraser, Murdo (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Ariane Burgess
I thank everyone for their contributions, and I thank the cabinet secretary for her thorough evidence in clearly setting out the Scottish Government’s intentions for the legislation.
Short-term lets have been with us for about 10 years. Although they make an important contribution to the tourism sector and provide an income stream for those who operate them, it has taken us that time to see the impact that they have on neighbours and communities.
Unregulated short-term lets have inadvertently begun shaping and negatively impacting rural and urban communities. We have heard how local people, public sector workers such as teachers and doctors and even those who work in the tourism sector struggle to find affordable housing in areas where short-term lets proliferate.
We have learned of a range of problems with the licensing regulations, such as the example of a building that was once a small cottage being transformed by the addition of extensions into a party house, bringing noise and making no contribution to local services. We have heard about criminality and the need for the fit and proper person element of the licensing scheme, and we heard last week about the challenges faced by Police Scotland and local authorities, as other members indicated.
We heard from Ailsa Raeburn that short-term lets are big business. The data shows that almost 40 per cent of owners in Scotland have more than three properties that are used for short-term lets, while 8 per cent have more than 100 properties.
We heard concerns about the burden that the licensing system will place on the providers of short-term lets. However, as we have heard through evidence, the cost will be proportionate and I trust our local authorities to come up with a process that is efficient and easy to use for licensing application and renewal.
The licensing order and the control areas regulations will work together to help us to ensure that local people who want to continue to live in their community, or public service workers who come to live in that community to provide much-needed services, can find a home there. I thank the cabinet secretary for indicating that we will have the opportunity in 2023 to review how the regulations and the order work and to revisit the possibility of overprovision regulations.
At a time when we recognise the importance of maintaining rural populations, focusing on place making and creating 20-minute neighbourhoods, we must use legislation to design a Scotland where people can live safely and be close to where they work. The Scottish statutory instruments that we are considering are part of the measures that we need to take to support our communities and to address the urgent need to provide local, affordable, adequate and accessible housing.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Ariane Burgess
Item 3 is to take evidence as part of the committee’s work on short-term lets. This is the committee’s final evidence session on the order and the regulations. After taking evidence from the cabinet secretary, the committee will debate the motions recommending approval of the order and the regulations. I welcome Fergus Ewing, who is attending the meeting.
I also welcome Shona Robison, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government; Andrew Mott, who is the head of the housing markets unit; and Rachel Nicholson, who is a lawyer in the housing and elections branch of the legal directorate in the Scottish Government. Thank you for joining us.
I invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Ariane Burgess
Thank you for providing that clarity and the potential timeframe. We move to questions from Miles Briggs.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Ariane Burgess
We will set out the results and the outcome of the debate in the committee’s report.
As agreed earlier, we will move into private to consider items 6, 7 and 8. I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials and close the public part of the meeting.
11:44 Meeting continued in private until 12:19.Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Ariane Burgess
The question Is, that motion S6M-02265, in the name of Shona Robison, be agreed to. Are we all agreed?
Members: No.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Ariane Burgess
Before I bring in Leon Thompson, I have a supplementary question about your comments on overprovision. What would we need to bring in to manage down the numbers in those areas?
