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 622 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 June 2023
Rhoda Grant
Should there be a duty on people to manage the fuel load? You talked about people’s duty to mitigate fire risk in public buildings. Should there be a duty on land managers to mitigate fire risk?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 June 2023
Rhoda Grant
My reading of the regulations is that, if something happens, the provision can be brought back into force, and the five-year period is to allow the agriculture bill to put in place something that will take over from it. Perhaps we can ask for confirmation of that. Moreover, we should make a note to look at this issue when we come to consider the agriculture bill, to ensure that it is doing what we have assumed to be the plan.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 June 2023
Rhoda Grant
So, you are not able to provide that at the moment.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Rhoda Grant
Obviously that has the benefit of stopping the sort of wildfires that we have seen quite recently and the resulting devastation, but how do we get that kind of land management—or at least the kind of management that stops wildfires and the damage that they cause? How do we replicate that elsewhere outwith grouse moors?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Rhoda Grant
So, as well as having licensing, should we also be saying to landowners that they need to control the risk of wildfire on their land, too?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Rhoda Grant
Yes—thank you, convener.
We are aware that the Scottish Government might make an announcement about further regulation of snares and that it is gathering evidence on humane cable restraints. What are your views on that?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 June 2023
Rhoda Grant
You talked earlier about the science around muirburn and whether it was beneficial and what the impact was. Why did you come to the conclusion that it should be subject to increased legal regulation?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Rural Affairs and Islands Remit
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Rhoda Grant
I have a quick question on crofting reform. We were promised reform in the previous session of Parliament, but that slipped because of Covid. It is really urgent. It may not seem a lot to many people, but it is stopping crofting development. When will reform happen and can you guarantee that it will happen during this session of Parliament?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Rhoda Grant
Have any producers expressed concerns about that, or are they all reasonably relaxed because that is not a huge part of their business?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Rural Affairs and Islands Remit
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Rhoda Grant
I welcome the use of words such as co-production and the like because I know that there is real concern, especially around HPMAs, that things are going to forced on people from the top down. There is a wee bit of concern that that is being done by a different department and that it is not joined up. How can we join it up and make sure that co-production works?
When people speak to me, I hear that they are really keen on making sure that there are areas that are protected but that they do not want those to be imposed on them. They want to be part of making those decisions and making sure that fishing is sustainable. In a way, a lot has been lost because of that impression, so we need to change that. I know that creelers and divers are just as concerned as mobile gear boats are, so how can we involve them more? They are not going to come to Edinburgh and knock on your door.
