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 1505 contributions
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Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Retained European Union Law
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Alasdair Allan
Do others want to come in on the question about the potential for contention over which Parliament amends these laws in future? Professor Armstrong is volunteering. You are muted, I think.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Retained European Union Law
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Alasdair Allan
Good morning, Mr Clancy. It is good to see you again at the committee. The Law Society made a written submission, which you alluded to there, that made some interesting historical comparisons with 1560, 1707 and 1999 as dates when bodies of law were retained. It is a bit more complicated this time, is it not? The question as to who gets to amend the body of preserved legislation is perhaps subject to more contention and more questions. Can you see that being a contentious issue in future?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Implementation of the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Alasdair Allan
On a slightly different subject, I will ask Dr Whitten for a business perspective on the current difficulty—let us call it that—between the EU and the UK Government as it might affect business in Northern Ireland. I appreciate that you are in a different predicament, but in Scotland we are beginning to be very concerned about the prospect of economic retaliation from the EU if that relationship breaks down completely. Is that a live debate in Northern Ireland?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Implementation of the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Alasdair Allan
Dr Whitten has very diplomatically described it as “UK unilateral action”. I will undiplomatically describe it as the UK breaking international law. Is that something that is a live issue as far as the business community is concerned, Mr Anderson?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Implementation of the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Alasdair Allan
It has been very interesting to hear from the panel today and get the voice of business. I am keen to get more of that voice, because we are accustomed in Scotland to hearing political opinion from Northern Ireland about the protocol but less accustomed to hearing the views of business. What does having access to two markets feel like for business? Notwithstanding all the problems that you have described, that is something we look on with some envy. Is it something that business values and would have a view about if it were to be taken away?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Retained European Union Law
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Alasdair Allan
Dr West and Ms Hood touched on the Sewel convention. I will not speak for too long about the Sewel convention, but I am interested to know your views about whether you feel that it will be a real thing in the future, or whether you feel that it has been tested to breaking point already. This week, the Parliament has made pretty clear what it is likely to do with the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill in terms of consent. Is the Sewel convention a real factor in how these relationships are played out in future, or do we use the past tense about the Sewel convention?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Alasdair Allan
Thank you.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Alasdair Allan
My other question is about rabbits. You have touched on some of the issues to do with hare coursing, but I want to ask about pest control in more general terms. Some of our previous witnesses do not like the term “pest control” as they feel that it might cause offence in relation to some species, but I am going to use it. Are you satisfied that the inclusion in the bill of measures for rabbits leaves adequate room for legitimate pest control?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Alasdair Allan
You touched on the definition of certain words, particularly in section 1 and 2 offences. Others have discussed the use of words such as “reckless”, “stalking” and “flushing”, so I will not cover that old ground. However, in the evidence that we have received, people have asked what it would mean if a person “reasonably believed” that they were acting under an exception. That is mentioned in section 2(4). Is the term “reasonably believed” defined well enough?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Alasdair Allan
I will return to the process, as it were, by which the Government developed the bill. We have heard from Lord Bonomy, who said fairly positive things about the bill. Although it does not include everything that was in his report, he seems to think that it is well drafted. What was the thinking about how to get from the Bonomy report to the bill and what alternatives were considered on the way?
