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 5644 contributions
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Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Climate and Nature Emergencies
Meeting date: 24 November 2021
Ariane Burgess
I have a question that will procure a short answer. Have any of the witnesses looked at the draft national planning framework, which was published earlier this month? If so, do you have any thoughts about how well it will deliver on the stated purpose
“to manage the development and use of land in the long-term public interest”
and its stated aims to
“ tackle and adapt to climate change”
and to
“restore biodiversity loss”?
I believe that, to some degree, farming is missing from the picture. It is a bit of a tome. If you have not had a look at it, I would love to hear from you in the future about your perspectives on it.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Climate and Nature Emergencies
Meeting date: 24 November 2021
Ariane Burgess
Thank you to everybody for what has been a great discussion so far.
I am trying to understand the blocks and resistance among the farming and crofting communities to moving towards organic and regenerative approaches, agroecology and so on. I have picked up a number of things from this conversation and other conversations that I have had outwith this meeting. First, there needs to be knowledge transfer. Baselining and land ownership have not really come up in this conversation yet, but I am aware of issues around tenant farmers, short-term tenancies, tree planting and so on. On farmer indebtedness, it is beginning to strike me that some farmers are probably in debt to their current practices.
That is a set-up for a few questions that I have. One is on whether regenerative farming practices are currently taught in agricultural colleges. Andrew Bauer talked about the five demonstration farms. I wonder whether there is a need for an advisory service that could arrange training on regenerative measures. One of its key responsibilities could be to support a just transition for the whole sector. I have brought up that issue quite a few times in the chamber and in conversations. What would that look like, and how could we start going about it? I know that I am inviting something of a high-level response. Some of this might need to involve the baselining that was mentioned earlier.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Climate and Nature Emergencies
Meeting date: 24 November 2021
Ariane Burgess
I just want to pick up on baselining. I want to understand that a bit more because, from conversations that I have had outwith the committee, it seems to be important. We do not really know what is out there. We do not know what we need to track with agriculture, so I would love to hear a bit more of your thoughts on that. What does baselining mean, what do we need to do, and what direction should we push the Government in to make it more useful for farmers? Does anybody want to have a go at that?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Local Elected Office (Barriers)
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Ariane Burgess
We will move on to our next theme, which Miles Briggs will lead on.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Local Elected Office (Barriers)
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Ariane Burgess
The fourth agenda item is to take evidence as part of the committee’s inquiry into understanding barriers to elected office. We will take evidence from three panels. We want to find ways of supporting the promotion of more diverse local representation, identify the barriers to that and find ways of dismantling those barriers. Every sector of our communities should be represented at the decision-making table. As Councillor Alison Evison said previously,
“when that is the case, we can really see the difference that it can make.”—[Official Report, Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, 7 September; c 21.]
I welcome Councillor Evison, who is the president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities; Alexis Camble, who is the policy and participation officer for equalities and is also from COSLA; Sarah Gadsden, who is the chief executive of the Improvement Service; and Laura Hutchison, who is the principal of the compliance team Scotland at the Equality and Human Rights Commission Scotland. Thank you for joining us. We will move straight to questions. For those of you who are joining us remotely on BlueJeans, please put an R in the chat box to indicate that you wish to respond to a question or contribute to the discussion.
Given that the McIntosh commission in 1999 and the Local Government Committee in 2000 highlighted a lack of diversity in local representation, why has progress been so slow? We will start with Councillor Evison.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Local Elected Office (Barriers)
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Ariane Burgess
Thank you for that. It is clear that we need to work together. As you mentioned, after 20 years there is still a lack of diversity. Can you point to why progress has been so slow?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Local Elected Office (Barriers)
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Ariane Burgess
Willie Coffey has another question.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Local Elected Office (Barriers)
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Ariane Burgess
I think that Junaid Ashraf wants to come in on the question.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Local Elected Office (Barriers)
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Ariane Burgess
Welcome back. We will continue taking evidence on barriers to elected office. I welcome our third and final panel: James Kelly is the general secretary of the Scottish Labour Party; Louise McAllister is councillor for the Ellon and District ward in Aberdeenshire; Roslyn MacPherson is a former council candidate from the Western Isles; Councillor Kelly Parry is the local government convener of the Scottish National Party; Sheila Ritchie is the convener of the Scottish Liberal Democrats; and Councillor Cameron Rose is from the Southside/Newington ward in Edinburgh. I thank them all for joining us.
If witnesses wish to respond to a question or contribute to a discussion, they should put an R in the chat box. Please try to be succinct in your responses. Time is against us. We want to hear from everyone and we have quite a few questions. We might direct specific questions to someone in particular if that will be more relevant.
I will start with a question that could take us all day. Despite that risk, I would like the witnesses to tell us how and why they became involved in local politics. The person who answers first may have a harder time. Please think about the key moment that brought you in and made you realise that this was something that you wanted to engage in.
I am looking at the order in which I called the names. James Kelly, could you make a start?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Local Elected Office (Barriers)
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Ariane Burgess
I do not want to put you on the spot, but are you willing to tell us how much you get paid as a councillor? Moreover—and I know that it is difficult to speak for yourself on this issue—what do you think we should be looking at as the right level of remuneration for the work that you do?
