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 4236 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament
Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 25 May 2023
John Swinney
Does Edward Mountain not understand that the plea for stability, which the Government responded to positively, was made by the industry?
Meeting of the Parliament
Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 25 May 2023
John Swinney
In the Government’s vision for agriculture, there is an explanation of the tiered support arrangement that is proposed and that has been consulted on. Does Rachael Hamilton support that or not?
Meeting of the Parliament
Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 25 May 2023
John Swinney
In preparing for this debate, I looked with care at the Official Reports of the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee’s evidence taking on its exercise in pre-legislative scrutiny. It takes a long time to read them, because the committee took extensive evidence. I compliment the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee on the exercise that it has gone through in gathering that information.
That evidence demonstrates a fundamental point that my friend and colleague Karen Adam made, which is that there is a diverse range of views on how to proceed on the matter. I think that the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee has done Parliament a service by mapping out the range of different and distinctive views that exists, so that we can resolve on a way forward. That range of evidence illustrates the scale of the challenge that faces the cabinet secretary, and it demonstrates that the careful work that the Scottish Government has undertaken for some time has been necessary in order for it to try to build a greater degree of consensus than would ordinarily be the case in such deliberations. Some strikingly different views exist on how to proceed, which Parliament and the Government will have to consider.
The Rural Affairs and Islands Committee has contributed meaningfully to the process, and the Government has responded to that by taking the necessary time and care to ensure that we have consensus. That has left us in a position in which there is broad consensus that we want to take an approach that ensures that we have confidence in our food supply and know that we have a sustainable agriculture sector, that adequate measures are being taken to tackle climate change and that the farming industry is involved and engaged—as much of it already is—in addressing biodiversity loss in our rural environment. Those are three absolutely fundamental priorities.
The exercise that the Government has gone through has got us to a strong position. I appreciate that people would like us to be further on, but I will come on to say why I think that that is a bit challenging. It has got us to a position in which we have the substance of a really strong agriculture bill for the Parliament to consider.
That has been added to by two fundamental commitments that the cabinet secretary has given to Parliament today. First, she has committed to there being a just transition. There has to be a transition—everybody accepts that. Some people would like the transition to be more acute than others would like, but everyone accepts that there has to be a transition. The fact that the cabinet secretary has committed to a just transition is a welcome assurance to people who might be concerned.
I will take a brief intervention from Mr Whittle.
Meeting of the Parliament
Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 25 May 2023
John Swinney
Yes, I am right.
Meeting of the Parliament
Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 25 May 2023
John Swinney
Will the member give way?
Meeting of the Parliament
Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 25 May 2023
John Swinney
Will Mr Rennie give way?
Meeting of the Parliament
Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 25 May 2023
John Swinney
I actually agreed with quite a bit of the analysis from Mike Rumbles that Mr Rennie talked about regarding the impact of Brexit. Had we not left the European Union, Scotland would have had access to seven years of certainty in agricultural programmes.
I know that Mr Rennie and I occupy different constitutional positions, but he must accept the fact that, after Brexit, there is not as much certainty from the UK Government about future funding flows as there was during our membership of the European Union.
Meeting of the Parliament
Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 25 May 2023
John Swinney
Does the cabinet secretary acknowledge that, in addressing the point that Oliver Mundell has just made, there is a need to provide a long-term line of sight about what the stability and pattern of direct payments might be, because they will be critical to underpinning investment? Does she believe that she has adequate information available to her in order to provide, at this stage, any further clarity on that line of sight?
Meeting of the Parliament
Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 25 May 2023
John Swinney
No, I will not.
The second key commitment that has been given by the cabinet secretary is that there will be no cliff edges, which is a crucial assurance that the process will be managed. This Government is listening with care to rural Scotland and wants to understand how the dichotomies and difficulties can be resolved. The Government should not be attacked for that and nor should the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee.
Meeting of the Parliament
Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 25 May 2023
John Swinney
What has the committee been doing? What has the Government been doing? They have been listening to those people for ages. Why do we not celebrate the fact that folk are getting on with it, rather than using it as a way of attacking the Government, which is the most pedestrian of parliamentary tactics?
